To a tweet asking for best book on introduction to philosophy, I suggested #WillDurant ‘s
#ThePleasruesOfPhilosophy

#Nostalgia made me reach out to it in my shelf & start reading it again.

What a delightful prose; a treat to intellect.

#Thread of excerpts

1/n

#WillDurant starts with ‘Confession’

“ . . Certain pages are heavily sentimental but they still express me faithfully. Others are cynical & unduly pessimistic, . . ; having discovered my own fallibility, I should be more lenient now with fellow men & with governments. . “

2/n

Invitation.

(This book)tries to make problems of philosophy intelligible by transparent speech & vitalise them by contemporary application.

. . We shall be repaid by coming closer to the concerns of our own life in our own day. For the subject here is our selves !
3/n

“ The passage from agriculture to industry, from village to town, from town to city has elevated science, debased art, liberated thought, ended monarchy, generated democracy & socialism, emancipated woman, disrupted marriage, broken down the old moral code, . .

4/n

“. . destroyed ascetism with luxuries, replaced puritanism with Epicureanism, exalted excitement above content, made Wars less frequent & more terrible, taken from us many of our most cherished religious beliefs & given us .. a mechanical & fatalistic philosophy of life. . 5/n

“ . . We are like a man who cannot walk without thinking of his legs or a player who must analyse every move . . as he plays, the happy unity of instinct is gone from us & we flounder in a sea of reasoning & doubt . .

6A/n

“ . . in the midst of unprecedented knowledge and power we are uncertain of our purposes, our values, and our goals . . “

Written in 1952 ( or May be 1929) these beautiful lines are so relevant & true even today

6B/n