These are tough days for philosophers. When any hodad with a wireless connection can present himself / herself to the world as a pundit, who has times for well-educated deep thinkers who routinely spelunk to the depths of metaphysics?
So it’s nice to encounter a series of books in a series called Philosophy for Everyone. So far, there are two dozen entries in this series, including the two latest, devoted to the Blues and to Fashion.
Blues — Philosophy for Everyone (Wiley-Blackwell, $19.95) is a collection of fairly serious writings by philosophy professors who realize their job here isn’t to impress other scholars as much as it is to provide an open door to the dedicated idea grazers among us.
The blues are a perfect vehicle to connect academia with the blues enthusiasts who show up at concerts today — usually, pony-tailed tax attorneys. The book addresses a lot of the usual questions of the day in a tone that is inclusive and not condescending — a tough tightrope for a lot of academics to walk: Do white people have the right to sing the blues? What cathartic role does the blues play in our lives? Is rock’n’roll just the diluted and ripped-off blues?
We encounter some of the usual suspects — B.B. King among them — and reading about these great artists will make you appreciate them more, and probably want to blast their music through the neighborhood.
Not being as interested in fashion (Exhibit A, today’s attire — a Red Sox hoodie, a ball cap and paint-stained jeans), I didn’t expect as much from Fashion — Philosophy for Everyone (Wiley-Blackwell, $19.95), but was pleasantly surprised by all that I learned.
As always, there are elements of history in works of philosophy, so just digesting the role fashion has played in the human parade makes for fine reading.
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2012.