Tammi tells the
author, Eric Kaplan, that her son, Schyler, can't be friends
with his son, Ari, because Ari would tell Schyler that Santa doesn't
exist. This causes Eric to be concerned that Tammi is sacrificing the
children's friendship for a belief. Can people hold different beliefs
and remain friends? Is it important that a belief be based on
reality? The question then becomes: Does Santa Exist?
To answer this
question Kaplan takes us through an abbreviated course in philosophy
from the ancient Greeks, to medieval Jewish philosophers, and
Buddhists. On the way we pass through neuroscience and folklore. The
book contains some attempts at comedy to explain philosophical ideas,
but I thought they generally fell flat.
I didn't dislike the
book, but I did feel that Kaplan took a rather circuitous route to
get to the conclusion. The book is not difficult to read. If you
enjoy philosophical discussions, you will like this book. However, I
can't recommend it. I felt it was rather pretentious,
showing off the
author's grasp of philosophy to come up with an answer that was
intuitively obvious from the beginning.
I reviewed this book
for Net Galley.
No comments:
Post a Comment