Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar – Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes is a book that explains basic philosophical concepts through classic jokes. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, graduates of Harvard in philosophy, collaborated on the book. After being rejected by 40 publishers, the book was accepted by Abrams Image, an imprint of Abrams Books, and immediately became a bestseller. It has been translated into 20 languages and appeared on bestseller lists in the U.S., France, and Israel.
Quote from the book
"A guy comes home from a business trip and finds his wife in bed, a nervous look on her face. He opens the closet to hang up his coat, and finds his best friend standing there, naked. Stunned, he says, "Lenny, what are you doing here?" Lenny shrugs and says, "Everybody's got to be someplace." In this gag, Lenny is giving a Hegelian answer to an existential question. The question is about the existential circumstances in the here-and-now, but the answer is from a grand, universal vantage point, what the latter-day Hegelian Bette Midler called “seeing the world from a distance."
