Maybe 90 seconds if you’re a slow reader

I was in the bookstore a while back looking through the Philosophy section because an old professor of mine, Andrew Pessin, wrote a book that he recommended to me (an author who thinks his book is worth reading… go figure…). It wasn’t on the shelf there, so I had them order it for me—in the meantime, there was another of his sitting there, begging for my attention (and if you’ve never seen a book beg before, you’ve been missing out).

The title? “The 60-Second Philosopher.” The release date? Apparently, a month after I bought it. I guess that book was begging really hard for my attention. Anyway, since AP wrote it, I wanted to take a look. He has a fun lecturing style (take a look at the AP quotes in this post to see what I’m talking about), so I wanted to know what his teachings were like on paper. I was not disappointed. Admittedly, I kept my expectations low to improve his odds, but I think he would have exceeded higher expectations as well.

One notable thing about this book is how well it’s broken down. AP isn’t quoting short sections of texts written by Hume, Hegel or Heidegger. Nope, 60-Second Philosopher puts 60 different theories in front of you and goes on and on and on for up to two small pages, which helps explain the “60-Second” part.

As for the “Philosopher” part, I had some fun reading the book, but AP wanted to focus more on your average layperson. It’s an attempt to make everyone a little more introspective, but whether it succeeds depends entirely on you. If you’re one of those people who subscribes to the philosophy of “Because I said so”, put the book back on the shelf and head to another section of the bookstore.

Here’s the kind of person who I think is his target audience. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and told him about my undergraduate degree in Philosophy, so he wanted to know what philosophy was. “Is it like psychology?” No. “Does it have anything to do with those alien symbols you see all across the world from different time periods?” No. “Then what is it?”

I started talking about ethics—theories of right and wrong. For example, some people might think that the rule of right and wrong is whatever makes you the happiest. That sounded pretty good to the guy until I suggested that it might make someone else happy to kill you, so BAM! He didn’t like the rule quite as much after that.

Mind you, AP doesn’t advocate the use of violence in his book. Mostly. He does bring it up at the beginning of Chapter 7, “God’s Odds”:

“You’re playing poker with friends. Your buddy Fred draws the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten of Spades—a Royal Flush, the highest ranking standard poker hand—the odds against which are roughly 65,000 to 1. Lucky Fred! In the next hand he draws those five cards again. OK that’s unusual, but you’ve known each other since childhood. But then he draws them again, and again. Yes you were best man at each other’s weddings but that doesn’t suppress your homicidal feelings. When he draws them yet again you find yourself reaching for a weapon.”

Getting that Royal Flush over and over is just as likely as any other hand. The odds of getting a pair are decent, but a pair of fives are lower. Drawing the Five of Hearts, Five of Diamonds, Ten and Jack of Clubs and the Ace of Spades? Just as likely as the final flush that leads to your untimely demise, especially if you’re playing for lots of money.

And that’s just a card game. If you take into account all of the things that had to happen for the universe to exist as it does—gravity, the speed of light, the existence of playing cards—you’re talking odds so microscopic that the likelihood of Fred cheating is about the same as the likelihood of God’s creating the universe.

I imagine some of you may have read that phrase and had to choke back some vomit. Well, to quote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is… 42.” Wait, that chapter is “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” Totally unrelated. Ah, here it is:

DON’T PANIC.

If you didn’t like what Chapter 7 had to tell you, the end of the entry has a short list of related chapters that might suit you better. If you skip ahead to 17 (“Can Jesus Make A Burrito So Hot He Couldn’t Eat It?”), it takes less than two pages to develop an argument that if God is supposed to be omnipotent, He cannot exist. For a majority of the chapters, you can find at least one other chapter that presents a contrary point of view. That’s right, God, AP doesn’t play favorites to anyone!

Well, not to any arguments, but he plays favorites to the readers. Each chapter is short, sweet and to the point. They’re easy to read with some good humor, but also have fairly well-developed arguments about a variety of topics from a variety of viewpoints. My recommendation? Buy the book and enjoy. Need another reason? “Because I said so.”

[If you want a more in-depth preview, AP has a pair of blogs (“The 60-Second Philosopher” and “The God Question”) and there are links in the right-hand column on the home page here. You can find 60-Second Philosopher at most bookstores, but Amazon.com has a 4-for-3 deal—it’s mentioned about halfway down the page—in case you know other people who could use some extra smarts. When you make your purchase, remember that AP thanks you for your generosity from the bottom of his burrito.]