Book Reviews: Book Review of Plato and Platypus Walk Into a Bar, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein -- Blue Rectangle

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Plato and Platypus Walk Into a Bar

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein

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“I saw it at the library, and it was an odd title. I picked it up and read a little further, and it's about philosophy through jokes. It has a very solemn picture of Plato in a little circle and an equally solemn picture of a platypus next to it. It's an overview of philosophy which frankly might be a little bit too ambitious a project for such a small book, considering that half of the book is taken up with jokes in one way or the other. The idea is I think anyone reading the jokes can understand every joke and know why they're funny, and they use this knowledge that people have of jokes to lead into how that relates to various philosophies. One example that comes to mind is a 75 year-old man walks into a priest. He says, "I'm 75 years old, and I made love to two 20 year-old women last night." The priest says, "Well, when was the last time you went to confession?" He said, "I never go to confession; I'm Jewish." He said, "Then why are you telling me this?" He said, "I'm telling everybody!" Now, that's a frame of reference type joke. The priest was looking on it as a confession, and the elderly gentleman was looking on it as bragging. That's under the section of philosophy of language, and that raises the question in my mind, "What is the connection of this with language?" It's the fact that it seems not so much a matter or — issue of language as an issue of looking at the same thing from two different directions. I'll give it three and a half. I think three is neutral; it's a little bit better than neutral because of the jokes in it. Might get people interesting who otherwise wouldn't think about philosophy.”