How The World Thinks by Julian Baggini is subtitled “A global history of philosophy”. I was expecting a cross-cultural, militias-faith tour of the topic, rather like Bertrand Russell‘s History of Western Philosophy without the direction. What Julian Baggini has assembled here, however, is something that initially surprised, but later rather disappointed as a result of a necessity to revisit similar concepts repeatedly.

How The World Thinks – Julian Baggini How The World Thinks – Julian Baggini

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Julian Baggini

Baggini is annoyed with Western-philosophy dumping the prefix altogether and presuming that the tradition's particular ways of conceiving the world, namely, the spirit of reaching out for a single, final truth through the methods of reductionism, empiricism and rationality, are the only ones that are to be taken seriously. Thus, he sets out to seek what others have on offer, and his journey is primarily focused upon India, China, Japan and the Islamic World (considered in terms of religion rather than region) with cursory glances at Africa and tribal cultures. Thus it is not so much as 'How the World Thinks' as 'How South/East Asia and Muslims Think'.

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This fuzzy thinking and high level of nuance is a strength of the book - but it does make for a drier read. The philosopher Julian Baggini sees such ancient stories as helping to explore and explain how people think in the West. But in his new book, How the World Thinks, he admits his own failures to learn about the stories and early philosophies which have come out of the East. Without them, he argues, you cannot understand the development of distinct cultures around the world. This book connected all these different strains of philosophy (not forgetting oral histories from around the world) by focusing on a few key questions when trying to figure out "how the world thinks". It helped me start to understand other cultures and gave me a newfound perspective on my own. In short: it has "wow'ed" me and I highly recommend it. It's incredibly well written and easy to digest, but you will surely have to stop and do a lot of side reading given the amazing interest of so many of the perspectives discussed.

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How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy - AbeBooks How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy - AbeBooks

Terrific. The intellectual and spiritual generosity of this book makes it an essential text for our fractious and dangerously divided era.” Richard HollowayLastly, the approach is so extremely general that many of the ideas discussed will, at least on the surface, already be known by anyone interested to read this book. I do however appreciate that such points can still be valuable in two ways; first in making you examine and contemplate them (again) and secondly because you can learn to appreciate and understand them better. Baggini also refers to the 'resistance to secularism in the Islamic world'. There is no single Islamic model of government. Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Turkey and others were historically secular states though there have been infringements in recent times. PDF / EPUB File Name: How_the_World_Thinks_-_Julian_Baggini.pdf, How_the_World_Thinks_-_Julian_Baggini.epub Asked about Johnson’s leadership, one EU official laughed, but offered a diplomatic take. “It’s not completely my taste to be honest,” the person said, sidestepping to praise the UK diplomatic machine. “One thing that we profit from is that the UK still has one of the best foreign services in the world. It’s pretty difficult to break that up and they [Downing Street] haven’t got round to it yet.”

Baggini: How the World Thinks review - a whirlwind Julian Baggini: How the World Thinks review - a whirlwind

You all have heard what the educated Bellario has written. And I assume this is the lawyer coming now. The journalistic nature of the book, and how he goes to interview experts on these particular cultures Reading this book aloud in the car, discovering gems together over Kopi and Roti Prata, letting a stranger skim through it just before the start of a lecture, discussing it with my boss after a workshop, trying to explain its gist to a curious 7-year-old. These were my favourite memories of reading this one. It’s also true that people in the ‘neither’ group may be more likely to be convinced by arguments that are put forward by those who deny the safety, effectiveness and importance of vaccination.The answer would appear to be the latter and whilst Baggini tries to downplay the practical and theological aspects in the work of, say, Aristotle, it rapidly becomes obvious that modern Western philosophy has sprouted from the impractical and useless results of the pursuit of technical knowledge (science), higher purpose in life (theology) and community cohesion (traditional stories) amongst others; it comes from the dead-ends of intellectualism if you will. Things which had practical application eg capitalism or psycho-analysis rapidly disassociated themselves from philosophy and the narrow, inflexible, arbitrary constraints of axioms, propositions and inductive reasoning - i.e. rationality. Plus, if you tune into a local radio station while in Ireland, you might be surprised to hear the death notices being announced on air! 3. Cursing – F-bombs and Jesus Credit: Pixabay / RobinHiggins