Reviews for Breakfast with Socrates: The Philosophy of Everyday Life

The average rating for Breakfast with Socrates: The Philosophy of Everyday Life based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-12-22 00:00:00 Ian Griffiths The premise of the book goes like this - if it is true that the unexamined life is not worth living, instead of waiting for philosophy lectures, why not examine your life in the moment? The everyday is 99% of our lives and if we dont think about it, while we live it, we might miss the meaning hidden amongst our trivial lives. And if we do, we might get a few glimpses of this, with appropriate help, enriching it in the process. To this end, various philosophers comment on various aspects of your daily routine and try to take you along some of their favourite tangents. At least, that is what they were supposed to do. The idea was to bring meaning to the mundane by getting these surprise guests to shock us with their radical perspectives on these routines and force us to look afresh on the familiar. Instead we get a few loose essays, mostly filled with the author's thoughts on the various aspects like waking up, driving to work, having food, fighting with spouse etc, with the occasional comment about how a philosopher, if consulted, might have chipped in on the matter. Barely an interesting section in the entire book, except for the one about driving to work. Splendid idea for a book, decent title, but poor execution.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-17 00:00:00 James Brice Not what I was expecting... but still pretty damn good. Reminds me of Barthes, essentially a book of essays that attempt to breakdown an event or action (going to the gym, waking up, arguing with your partner, etc) that occurs in the average day-to-day life. I was hoping to walk away learning a bit more about actual philosophical concepts and famous philosophers, but instead felt like I was listening to a person who just smoked a bowl and started having random existential conversations with me in some dark corner of a house party. However, I tend to enjoy random musings (whether inspired by being under the influence or by someone stone cold sober!) such as the ones Smith presents in his book, and he left my mind feeling stimulated and inspired. Overall, it's a great piece of work. :)