Culture

Author: Peter Cave
Publisher: One World
4/5
 
There’s been a spate of these popular philosophy books recently. I guess it was just a matter of time before philosophers capitalised on this phenomenon. It makes me wonder, though, if the market for popular philosophy and popular maths (we have a review of a popular maths book coming out soon. True story) and popular sociology, etc. is even nearly as big as the market for popular science. Probably not. But never mind. 
As a philosophy student, I’m glad there are more and more philosophy books pitched at laypeople. And most of them seem pretty good, actually. Peter Cave’s series (beginning with Can a Robot be Human?, continuing with What’s Wrong with Eating People?, and now Do Llamas Fall in Love?) is no exception. Cave’s 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles series is pretty much what it sounds like. Each book contains 33 short musings about some philosophical conundrum (only one of which directly corresponds to the book’s title). By design, the musings raise more questions than they answer, but in so doing, they serve to introduce the reader to various viewpoints on the matter and (hopefully) to dissolve their dogmatic opinions (insofar as they have such opinions). 
I’ve not had the privilege to read the previous two books in the series, but Do Llamas Fall in Love? is pretty fun. It’s very accessible and witty, and actually pretty fair. Cave’s own convictions (as presented in his other books; he’s very prolific) don’t spill out onto the page as much as you might expect if you’ve read similar books (e.g., A. C. Grayling’s stuff), and I found that a refreshing change. However, one possible side effect of this is that some readers might be left thinking that there are no correct answers to the questions he raises (and that’s not always true). Or perhaps that there are no easily obtained correct answers (which is probably true), and therefore that it’s a waste of time thinking about such things (which is, I say defending my discipline, not true at all).
So, if you’re looking for something to guide your critical thinking on various interesting matters (the usual suspects: ethics, religion, politics, aesthetics), you could do much worse than Peter Cave’s 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles series. However, I do recommend that you eventually move on to more sophisticated stuff. Like popular science, popular philosophy doesn’t quite do justice to the subject matter.