Category: Philosophy & Worldview

  • Finite and Infinite Games

    James P Carse

    The last book that fundamentally affected my way of thinking was ‘Antifragile’. It altered my perspective on ownership, planning, and in general, the approach to various events and things. It remains a favourite. But Finite and Infinite Games took my thinking to a different plane altogether, and has probably altered it irrevocably. Credit goes to James P Carse for at least two things – one for the thinking that clarified everything around us to this level of ‘simplicity’, and two, for explaining it in a manner that makes it easy to absorb.

    “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite.” From politics and wars to sports and business, finite games are all around us. They are played to be won, and are over when there is a victor. There is only one infinite game and its only purpose is continuing the play. In both, “whoever plays, plays freely.” (more…)

  • The Road to Character

    David Brooks

    The concept of the book is something I could easily relate to. In fact, it reminded me of a favourite concept from the Mahabharata – Jaya and Vijaya. Vijaya is victory over others, and Jaya is victory over self. In this book, the author writes about two sides of our nature – one that is ambitious and career oriented, and another that is more concerned with the moral battles within.

    He calls the former the ‘Big Me’ culture, where the focus is on the individual – be it consumption, or self actualisation. The alternate is where the individual has the humility to understand that he is part of a much bigger picture and through what the author calls ‘eulogy virtues’ builds relationships and moral standards. Using examples across history, walks of life, gender and race, he illustrates how some people have built themselves a moral fibre slowly but surely. He then uses the lessons from these as a contrast to the excesses of our age – from contexts that range from parenthood to social media.

    The journeys of the individuals are in themselves fantastic reads. The chapter titles are a clue to the thrust of the arguments within – self conquest, struggle, self mastery etc – and the author does a great job of tracing the tribulations, and the moral ascent of the people involved. My favourite would be George Eliot. Across the vast stretches of time that separates us, her words spoke to me. (more…)

  • The Consolations of Philosophy

    Alain de Botton
    “Helping us live our lives” is the purpose of philosophy, says the blurb on the book cover, attributed to Independent. I vaguely remember Plato saying that the purpose of philosophy is to teach us how to die, but let’s assume that Independent is talking about the purpose of philosophy in the context of this book. The intent of the book, therefore, cannot be faulted.
    The author, both in terms of content and style of writing aims to make the works of the masters accessible to us. Content both from what he chooses to share from the works as well as the packaging. The human conditions that are addressed are universal and what keeps us up at night – unpopularity, not having enough money, frustration, inadequacy (that’s probably not that universal), a broken heart, and difficulties. In each of these contexts, the author draws from not just the philosophies of Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche but their lives as well. He also uses snippets from his own life to give it a contemporary flavour and wit to make it relatable. So far so good.
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  • The Story of Philosophy

    Will Durant

    “Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom”, states Will Durant in the introduction to this book that chronicles the lives and opinions of Western philosophers from Socrates to John Dewey. The idea behind this book is to make philosophy accessible to the layman, and as one among the intended audience, I can say that it does a fantastic job of it!

    There are nine chapters each dedicated to a philosopher, and two additional ones that capture the thoughts (in lesser detail) of three European and three American contemporary philosophers. (the book was published in 1924, so ‘contemporary’ is actually almost a century away) One of the great aspects of this book is how it manages to give the milieu in which the philosophers operated – both the socio-political contexts and the influences of his predecessors.

    This gives a wonderful flow to the overall narrative and gives the reader a kind of seamless path of thought. The effect of their personal lives on their thinking has also been well captured. (more…)

  • The Difficulty of Being Good

     Gurcharan Das

    I’d liked Gurcharan Das’ “India Unbound” (that was a long while back, I haven’t read his later works) and I’m generally a sucker for all things epic, so buying The Difficulty of Being Good was a given.

    The blurb created quite the hype for me by stating that the book “shows us how we can come to terms with the uncertain ethics of the world today.” (a world which according to them can be compared to the one in Mahabharata) On hindsight, this does seem a reasonably impossible task and I should have figured that out before I started.

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