Breakfast With Socrates: The Philosophy of Everyday Life [Kindle Edition]

In "Breakfast with Socrates", subtitled A Philosophy of Everyday Life, former Oxford Fellow Robert Roland Smith takes various elements of a 'typical' day and provides insight into what an eclectic collection of thinkers might have to offer to make these mundane routines more interesting. After all, as Socrates declared 'the unexamined life is not worth living'.

My first thought was that Roland Smith leads an enviously full life since his typical day includes not only waking up, getting ready, travelling to work, being at work, taking a bath, cooking and eating, watching TV, reading a book and falling asleep, but he also manages to find time to go to the doctor, have lunch with his parents, bunk off, go shopping, head to the gym, book a holiday, go to a party, have an argument with his partner, have sex and book a holiday - which he no doubt needs after all that. It's a wonder he finds time to think at all with all that going on. It's a clever structure for the book though.

Both titles to the book are potentially a bit misleading. Socrates makes very limited appearances (the author suggests that the book may as well have been titled 'Having a Bagel with Hegel' which appealed more to the inner Dr Seuss in me) and Roland Smith does not limit himself to traditional philosophers for inspiration. Here you will also find an eclectic mix of psychoanalysts, sociologists, painters, psychologists, political writers, anthropologists and writers as well as philosophers to offer their thoughts.

There is an old adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but with philosophy a little knowledge can also be very interesting, particularly when you are dealing with philosophers like French Foucault and Derrida whose works I have always failed to understand beyond the first sentence. Roland Smith does his best to simplify and provide snippets of thought that make you see things just a bit differently. To a large extent Roland Smith is able to lead the casual reader through some of these ideas.

Indeed, he comes over as a very knowledgeable and affable guide. His points of reference range from his academic studies, to Shakespeare, 'Jaws', 'The Godfather', 'Sex in the City' as well as authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lewis Carroll, and Nabokov. For the most part it's largely jargon-free (or at least effective at explaining the jargon used) and infused with amusing asides - although these can make some of the sentences long and difficult to read.

For me, some chapters worked better than others - he is at his best when he is being more playful than when he gets bogged down in some apparently random trains of thought. At his party, he takes his theme from the 'It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To' opening and the eloping Johnny and Judy, while on discussing an argument with a partner, he takes the example of George and Martha in Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'. When he doesn't quite have the same springboard (in the chapters on visiting the doctor or the lunch with parents, for example) it works less well I felt.

The book is much in the style of other 'popular philosophy for all' like Alain de Botton although the publishers have not helped Roland Smith's cause by the format of the book which is much more scholarly in terms of the layout and font than the glossy approach adopted by de Botton's publishers.

Ultimately though, it's hard not to recommend someone who provides you with an argument for not going to the gym, for promoting the power of using the TV remote control and letting your parents pay for lunch!

Rowland Smith is a truly gifted communicator. This is the only book I've read that's been able to explain, among other things, continental philosophy to the layperson. Rowland Smith is intellectual without being elitist, eclectic without rambling, serious without being stuffy. The book's strength is that it draws not only on philosophy as we would traditionally understand it, but also the realms of art, literature, pyschoanalysis, anthropology etc - whatever will help to illuminate the practice under consideration (having sex, going to a party, for example). This book is for everyone who loves thinking in all its many forms and would make a good Christmas present, I'd say.

This is a book that can't be rushed. Taking everyday life situations, the author observes their relationships with philosophical thought and past writings to offer a possible understanding of how they can be approached and handled in a way that is beneficial to living. It is not a guide to a good life, more a presentation of possibilities. No, I've not finished it yet, and don't intend to rush to the final page. However, I believe I will return to it again and again to help my understanding by drawing upon the understanding of others.