Philosophy Book Review

Kelly Donaghey, staff writer

I will be honest, the only reason I picked up Philosophy in Seven Sentences, by Douglas Groothuis, is because it was small. “This is great. I can rip right through this for the newspaper,” I thought.

Well, surprise! It took longer than I had expected, not because the book was bad, but because I found myself wanting to ponder it while reading. This is a book of seven essays written around seven famous sentences in philosophy. Groothuis conveys his enthusiasm for the subject while clearly explaining how each sentence captures its speaker’s school of thought, and how their philosophies contributed to the culture of Western civilization. That is my main issue with the book, actually. It only focuses on Western philosophy. Groothuis himself points this out in the introduction, and states he will write a follow-up book of Eastern philosophy; he chose to do this because he liked the alliteration of the title. While, obviously, a joke—if that were the case, why not Philosophy in Sixteen Sentences? Perhaps it would be a longer book, but it would not ignore the contributions and accomplishments of non-Western philosophers.

Other than this oversight, I truly enjoyed the book, and wish his book on Eastern philosophy was already out. If you want a brief, light introduction to philosophy, this is worth a look- though maybe not if you want a quick read.