[Spanish] Fernando Savater: *The Invitation of Philosophy—The Question of Life*, translated by Lin Jingwei, Peking University Press, September 2007, 24 yuan — ☆
Although there is no longer any need to cultivate an interest in philosophy, I still keep an eye out whenever I find a newly published introductory philosophy book on the market. Introductory books are among the easiest, most interesting, and most colorful kinds of philosophy reading. Introductory or survey works written by different people are surely bound to have their own flavors; if two introductory books read as though they were virtually identical, then chances are they were both written by Chinese people……
This book is touted as “the Spanish *Sophie’s World*,” which initially led me into a bit of a misunderstanding—I even thought it was a book roughly like *Sophie’s World*. Only after reading it did I realize that this book is in fact much better.
Teacher Zhao Dunhua wrote the preface for this book, and he says: “General philosophy textbooks and theoretical works explain the answers to these questions through rigorous reasoning and proof, through thorough and meticulous analysis and synthesis. *The Invitation of Philosophy*, however, uses a relaxed style to discuss these serious questions together with the reader. The author tells the reader: where do these questions come from? Why should we consider them? How do philosophers consider these questions? Do their ideas make sense? How should we think about these questions? …… In discussing problems, the philosopher’s thought is not a guide but merely a reference. More important sources of thought are our lived experiences, including our everyday clothing, food, housing, and transport, as well as our appreciation of and commentary on literary classics and world-famous paintings; all of these are the starting points and threads from which philosophical questions are thought through. The author is not instructing the reader, but inviting the reader to think through philosophical questions together with him. As for these questions, the author draws no absolute conclusions; each chapter leaves behind a series of questions, which are an open space in which the reader’s thoughts are free to gallop about.”
The introduction and conclusion of this book are both discussions of “philosophy” and its significance, while the middle is divided into ten chapters, each centered on a “big question.” The keywords of the chapters are, in order: death, knowledge, self, human beings, world, freedom, nature, society, beauty, time.
This reminds me of when I was making a philosophy popularization display board for Lao Yang back then—the train of thought was almost exactly the same as in this book! I likewise began with “philosophy” and ended with “philosophy,” and the keywords in between were: knowledge, self, human beings, life (which can also correspond to “world”), hope, freedom, goodness, beauty—I discovered that, including the opening and closing, at least seven themes not only matched this book completely, but also appeared in the same order. I also tried to connect these questions to one another in some kind of sequence, though I was not very successful, but this book did it: the end of each chapter naturally led into the question of the next chapter! If what had been asked of me back then had not been a display board of about five hundred Chinese characters, but 10,000 to 20,000 characters per topic, then this book could be said to be exactly the way I would have wanted to write it!
If *Big Questions* is suitable as an introductory book for a university philosophy course, then this book is more suitable for middle school students to read. In fact, this book is used as a Spanish middle school textbook. Of course, it is also suitable for university students who are not majoring in philosophy.
November 1, 2007
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2007-11-07 11:21:20 Anonymous 58.213.116.132
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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