And, it seems, you would have no way of knowing that this had happened, since to you it would seem just as if a normal life was continuing. No, just part of an attempt to explain what was happening in Rene Descartes' mind one day in 1619 when he shut himself away in a room and had a vision showing him his life's work. Philosophy can be pretty weird. But it doesn't have to be impossibly dry, difficult and boring. Blackburn is just one of a host of academics and others with a gift for communicating obscure ideas in accessible language who are finding their way onto mainstream publishers' lists - and in some cases, producing bestsellers.
Philosophy is a hot subject for books.
Plenty of readers with no advanced education or specialist knowledge have an ineluctable sense of wonder and curiosity that will propel them through the thickets of self, fate and free will, the reality of sensory perception, ethics, God, truth and reason. All they need is an understandable and consistently engaging guide to at least get them started. Such guides are not always easy to find. On the other, Philosophy For Dummies , by Tom Morris, which has a nasty yellow cover and snappy layout identical to those Windows or Internet for Dummies books - as if you can sort out a glitch in your Nietzsche by clicking on the right buttons. Then if you don't feel you've dumbed-down enough, there's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Philosophy by Jay Stevenson and Marcia Ian, which rips through everything from Kierkegaard to the New Age.