Do You Think What You Think You Think?

June 4, 2007
In their latest philosophical novelty book, Baggini and Stangroom refashion the kind of frivolous quiz found in women's and men's style magazines—the kind with flippant multiple-choice answers adding up to a final score—as a philosophical tool. The challenges are amusing and fun enough to pass the time during a long commute, making for a kind of Philosophy 101 student's sudoku, but not much more. As in his previous book, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten
, Baggini encourages people to question common assumptions. Unfortunately, this book feels more superficial than its charming precursor. In the case of a quiz on free will, the scoring requires more time than the test taking. In another chapter, it's possible to conclude that Britney Spears is as great an artist as Mozart. The book's “final” measures the reader's absorption of the history of the discipline that's provided in the overviews and analyses surrounding each of the tests—but it's clear that learning the history of philosophy isn't the point. Once readers have completed the final tally, some may be disappointed to find that, no matter what their score, “what you know about philosophy isn't worth knowing.”