Ah I have finished my Prehistory of the Mind book. Lots of good ideas, after summing up he did an Epilogue implicating his cognitively fluid mind in the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago. For reasons certainly other than that of the global food shortage proposed by some. His reasons have more to do with social gains for the few, the overall effect of switching from a hunter gathering to farming method of subsistence was to lower general health and fitness standards due to limited the variability of food sources (relying on hybridised crop varieties) and increased proximity of larger groups of people leading to disease. However the possibilities for prestige afforded by possession by the individual of a majority of resources as well as the ability to construct tools related to specific plants, a consequence of a merging of technical and natural history intelligence, was too good an opportunity to miss. Eager to read more on the same line, or at least more anthropology or psychology stuff I ended up picking up the Alain de Botton book "The Consolations of Philosophy" that I got for Christmas, thanks mum, and started reading.
Each chapter is devoted to a different philosopher and their concerns and the idea of the book as a whole is to try and use philosophy as a tool to better understand and cope with life. A sterling plan I feel and should be a good read to get me up to speed on basic ideas before I wade waist deep into the Classics of Western Philosphy on my shelf. The post title refers to Socrates apparent appearance, but actually sounds like a lovely chap on an even keel, don't think I could have taken a sentence of death by draught of hemlock with such aplomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment