Pooh and
the Philosophers is a 1995 book by John Tyerman Williams, purporting to show
how all of Western philosophy from the last 3,000 years was a long preparation
for Winnie the Pooh. It was published in 1995 by Dutton in the United States
and by Methuen in the United Kingdom, using A. A. Milne's fictional bear
Winnie-the-Pooh, and is both humorous and intellectual.
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“I don’t know how an austere scholar of
philosophy might react to “Pooh and the Philosophers” by John Tyerman Williams,
but this is an enjoyable volume for the lay reader. Dr Williams has delved into
the minutiae of the Pooh books and derived interpretations, metaphors,
allegories that can be considered absurdly brilliant or brilliantly absurd,
depending on your point of view. He has an incredible felicity with words and
the sometimes serious, sometimes flippant style of writing in the first half
initially had me wondering how serious he actually was in his asseverations,
some of which seem a bit far-fetched. (Interestingly, the dedication at the
beginning of the volume states that the book is the result of a casual joke).
The second half of the book veers towards more of
a serious tone though still with touches of humour. It does become a bit
repetitive, however, because the author frequently goes over the same excerpts
from the text for the various philosophers instead of giving readers a wider
selection of examples from different chapters. Drawback notwithstanding, the
way Dr Williams links Pooh and company to Socrates, Plato, Milton, Aristotle,
Stoicism, Epicureanism, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hobbes, Alexander, Locke,
Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell, Ayer, Popper, Wittgenstein, Kant, Hegel,
Nietzsche, Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus is quite fascinating,
instructive, and amusing, and it certainly kept me entertained for a day!”
Date: 18 Feb 2019
Shivani Adib / https://shivaniadib.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/book-review-pooh-and-the-philosophers/
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