3 philosophical classics that are better than self-help books
By Jonny Thomson | Published: 2024-12-16 17:40:00 | Source: Thinking – Big Think
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There are two ways to write a bestseller. The first is to imagine something truly original. You need to invent a world or formulate a new idea – an idea that changes the reader. The second way is to rewrite something and update it. You can set Shakespeare in an American high school or give a modern twist to ancient myths. And one of the most popular and profitable versions of this exists in the modern self-help industry. Of course, some self-help books are original and new. But the biggest part of it is the philosophy behind the new collection of clothes. It’s Aristotle in podcast form, or Lao Tzu giving a TED talk.
There is nothing wrong with this. Big ideas wrapped in big words often require a lot of chewing. Almost all philosophical ideas come nested in a complex background of neologisms, foreign concepts, and alternative worldviews. I was teaching Friedrich Nietzsche to 16-year-olds. Often times, they really took it. So, I asked them to go and read In the lineage of morals. They didn’t like him then. Philosophy is one of the most important disciplines in the world, capable of changing and defining lives. But it is often difficult. So it makes sense that millionaires are created by explaining or condensing complex philosophical ideas to the modern ear.
The problem is that any time you simplify it, you lose nuance. If you simplify it again, it loses a little bit of meaning. When you simplify it too many times, it becomes so diluted and diluted that it becomes worthless. So, here are three examples where philosophy is richest at its source. Here are three books that are worth more than a library full of self-help guides.
Nicomachean Ethics By Aristotle
One of the hallmarks of genius is not being considered a genius. It’s creating something so clear, clear and direct that when you first meet it, you feel like you’ve known it for a long time. An inventor, for example, will become rich thanks to billions of people who say: “I can’t believe no one thought of this before.” Likewise, a novelist, writer, or artist will create something so immersive that you often won’t see the effort that went into planning, execution, and editing. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics It is a work of genius because you do not see the genius.
When I first read Aristotle as a young adult, I read it as I would any book or article. I was swept away by the argument. Everything he said seemed clear. I felt as if I was being pulled along the path, and I couldn’t imagine any other way to walk. I gleaned wisdom from his thoughts and followed his conclusions, but I felt as if there was something much greater lurking beneath the surface. It was as if I were sailing on the breeze, but beneath the sea there was a huge philosophical tyrant, for Aristotle’s work is so well crafted. This was no hasty act of an all-night march to the drums of an angry editor. As philosopher Michael Pakaluk says: “It is difficult for the novice student to appreciate the density and focus of Aristotle’s thought, not least because hardly anyone else writes in this way; almost every sentence plays a role in some argument or other, and every word plays a specific role in the sentence, as in a carefully written poem.”
So, what is Aristotle’s book about? Well, the word “ethics” in his book is an old version of the word. Today, it means right and wrong, and is synonymous with morality. But in ancient Greece, morality was more about lifestyle. It was the way you acted and your entire personality. So, Aristotle’s book is literally a how-to guide or argument on how to be human. It’s how to live well, how to be virtuous, and most of all, how to be happy. The book begins with the question: “What is the ultimate goal in life?” Aristotle thought it was eudaimonia, Or deep existential happiness. So the whole book is a guide on how to be happy. It is the work of decades of philosophical study and debate from one of the greatest minds in history. “Well,” she says, “if happiness is the destination, how do we get there?” The path Aristotle leads us on is a work of genius. You’ll think you’ve heard it before, but it will change your outlook on life.
Articles By Michel de Montaigne
There are only a few people in history who you can say literally started an entire genre. You could say Mary Shelley with science fiction, Jane Austen with romance novels, and JRR Tolkien with modern fantasy. The sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne is widely considered the father of the essay. Today, articles are everywhere. Almost all the long-form, non-fiction books you read online come in article form. There is no easy way to define a literary essay, but broadly speaking, it is when you explore a topic in a philosophical and meditative style while weaving in biographical details and fascinating asides. Montaigne was the first to do this.
article In sixteenth-century France it literally meant “trial,” the idea being with Montaigne Articles is that he would take a “trial”—a question, an issue, a problem—and write down his thoughts on the subject. Of course, the art of the article comes in the degree of contemplation and the style in which it is written. A good article requires intelligence, erudition, and coherence.
There are two reasons why Montaigne’s essays are a great example of “self-help.”
The first is that Montaigne literally speaks to us through his solutions to common problems. Here, we have a very intelligent human being talking about topics that are as relevant today as they were four hundred years ago. He talks about feeling lazy, dealing with liars, and the best way to apologize. Explains the joys of solitude but the dangers of loneliness. It even offers tips on how to get a good night’s sleep. Montaigne explores more than a hundred themes, with a few limited to his time and place.
This relatability is also what makes Articles Very useful. Reading Montaigne’s Meditations is like going back in time and finding someone who has as many quirks and dilemmas as we do. Montaigne does not seem to present himself in a noble or faultless manner. He’s happy to let it all hang out. When we read his essays, we see a complex, perfect, flawed but always kind, intelligent and lovable character. Perhaps Montaigne is saying something trivial, as when he writes: “When I play with my cat, who knows whether she amuses herself with me or I with her?” Or it can be something poignant and profound, as in his essay about the death of his best friend. But he always appears human, like you and me. James Baldwin expressed it perfectly when he said:
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was the books that taught me that the things that tormented me the most were the same things that connected me to all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
This is what I get when I read Montaigne.
Dao De Jing By Lao Tzu
There are some people who hesitate to name books like Dao De Jing “Philosophy” at all. They argue that philosophy is a narrowly defined discipline that includes hypotheses, conclusions, and a basis for rational discussion. If this is our definition of philosophy, then the Dao De Jing is not philosophy at all. The Dao De Jing differs greatly from both Aristotle and Montaigne, and differs from almost all academic works in the Western tradition. It is a collection of obscure proverbs and nuggets that are sometimes difficult to even understand. Not only do they refuse to give you any direct answers, they make you wonder if there are any direct answers to be found.
But the reason self-development is important is because books like Dao De Jing Appealing to an element of the human condition in a way that more rational texts cannot. I’m not strict enough to say Dao De Jing It’s not philosophy, but it’s certainly a very different beast from most philosophy. In many ways, Dao De Jing It is closer to poetry than to philosophy, but in the way that poetry can be deeply philosophical as well. Daoist students are reading Dao De Jing He sometimes spent months pondering a single line from Lao Tzu’s works. They pondered all that the words revealed, often sharing their interpretations – many versions of Dao De Jing We find over the centuries it comes crowded with footnotes.
the Dao De Jing It gives us two main ideas. The first is to accept that some things are beyond our understanding and are likely to remain so forever. There are mysterious forces and answers that cannot be named, but are no less important to them. Whether you prefer to call it Dao, destiny, the unconscious, socioeconomic forces, will, or something else, the central idea is the same: some things exist but cannot be named.
The second is what Dao De Jing He’s about to. It’s about listening to these unknown forces. It’s about following the river of your life – waterfalls and rapids too, if that comes to it. Blaise Pascal once wrote: “The heart has its reasons of which the mind knows nothing.” (I quote Pascal because the phrase “listen to your heart” is too hackneyed and hackneyed even for me.)
I don’t quite know what Dao De Jing He’s about to. Some of it seems to be contradictory nonsense. I don’t think anyone can fully understand large parts of it. But the reading experience Dao De Jing Reading any of the books on this list, thinking about them, is in itself an act of meditative mindfulness. Sometimes, the best thing about philosophy is not the ideas themselves, but the process of considering them.
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