Reviews for Jesus And Socrates Compared

The average rating for Jesus And Socrates Compared based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-28 00:00:00 David Nibel This is a thorough and thoughtful history and academic exploration of scepticism as it was developed and practised in ancient Greece, starting with Pyrrho and ending with Sextus Empiricus. Thorsrud does a good job of teasing out the intricacies of sceptical arguments and objections to them - sometimes perhaps a little confusingly, given the complexities of the territory of beliefs and truths. It's not an easy read at times, therefore, but is well worth persevering with if you want to understand the intellectual foundations of the sceptical project of living a tranquil life through suspending judgement (epoche). I enjoyed the explicit or implicit relevance of these ideas to phenomenology, therapy and moral impasses (aporia). Scepticism is entirely relevant today, and it has much in common with Buddhist ideas of non-attachment as a practical amelioration of suffering. This book isn't really aimed at changing how you lead your life - but it does offer some clues for living, the most paradoxical of which is: "The proper sceptical attitude is to neither believe nor disbelieve that there is an art of living." Put that in a koan and smoke it!

Review # 2 was written on 2017-08-27 00:00:00 Robert Mitchell Three stars - a good book. A well written, comprehensive overview of the philosophy of scepticism from Pyrrho to Sextus Empiricus. In between Thorsrud traces both the Academic and the Pyrrhonian schools of thought. The book was written as an introduction to scepticism for advanced university level philosophy students. As a result, Thorsrud is constantly challenging the positions of the theories that he is putting forward. Often this approach works well, forcing the reader to think these theories through. Many times, however, the method backfires because the arguments are variations on a theme and become somewhat repetitive. Thorsrud knows his material and is a complex thinker who gets his ideas across clearly. Good overview that is well worth the read.