Great Minds on Small Things: The Philosophers' Guide to Everyday Life

Matthew Qvortrup

Oct 2023 · Duckworth Books

Ebook

224

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About this ebook

Three centuries ago, Voltaire published his Dictionnaire philosophique, taking in such idiosyncratic topics as adultery, mountains, nakedness, and others besides. In 1957, another French philosopher of more recent vintage, Roland Barthes, mused in his Mythologies on the masculine pursuits of wrestling, striptease and the Citroën DS. Since the dawn of philosophy, the world's great thinkers have been unable to resist the lure of applying their formidable brains not only to the meaning of life, but also to the meaning of coffee, trapped wind or efficient boiler installation.

Now, from Wollstonecraft to Wittgenstein, Laozi to Locke, Aristotle to Arendt, Great Minds on Small Things brings together their varied observations, alongside delightful black and white illustrations, in a highly entertaining and eye-opening miscellany that is guaranteed to make life’s mundanities suddenly seem a lot more highbrow.

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About the author

Matthew Qvortrup is an award-winning journalist, academic, and broadcaster, now working as a senior reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He is the author of 15 books about politics and philosophy, including the critically acclaimed biography of Angela Merkel (2021) and popular philosophy collection, Great Minds on Small Things (2023). Matthew has previously presented programs for the BBC, and has written for, among others, the Sun, Bloomberg, Australian Financial Review, and the Scotsman. He trained in law and political science, holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and is the recipient of, respectively, the Oxford University Press Law Prize and the PSA Prize. Matthew is also an adjunct Professor at LUISS in Rome and a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University. You can learn more about him on the ABC.

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