Details:
- author: Sextus Empiricus, Richard Bett (translator and commentator)
- full title: How to Keep an Open Mind - An Ancient Guide to Thinking like a Skeptic
- series: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers Series
- narrator: Tom Parks
- genre: philosophy
- topics: #skepticism, #ancientgreek, #philosophers, #openmind
- publisher: HighBridge Audio
- publish date: 30.03.2021
- timing: 02:27:00
My Rating of the Audiobook:
- content: 💙💙💙💙
- narration: 💙💙💙💙
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| Goodreads |
Exerpt from book:
A skeptical person, as the term is normally used today, is someone who is inclined to be doubtful - who doesn't accept what others tell them without a good deal of persuading. The ancient Greek skeptic with whom we will be concerned here, Sextus Empiricus, certainly has something in common with this person, but he is quite a bit more single-minded about it. He has a series of ready-made techniques for making sure that he (or whoever these techniques are applied on) never accepts anything – or at least, anything put forward by someone who claims to understand how the world works. Instead, he suspends judgment about all matters of that kind. And the payoff for this suspension of judgment, he says, is that you are much calmer and less troubled than other people; skepticism actually has a beneficial effect on your life.
My Thoughts:
How to Keep an Open Mind is a selection from Sextus Empiricus's main work, Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Sextus's work is the only surviving document from Greek skeptics. Richard Bett is a translator, and he gathered these selections in this (audio)book. He comments on the work and finds parallels with the modern world. Skeptics advocate that a person should be without opinion, and he doesn't judge anything. That's how he can achieve tranquility. This work would be equally good in an ebook or hardcover format. For some, this may be an even better choice. But if you are more into audiobooks and you like philosophy, this is an audiobook for you.How to Keep an Open Mind is one of the books in the series "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers" from Princeton University Press.
Tom Parks's narration is very good and it suits the genre.
About the Author:
Sextus Empiricus was a Pyrrhonist philosopher and a physician. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and because of the arguments they contain against the other Hellenistic philosophies they are also a major source of information about those philosophies.
Little is known about Sextus Empiricus. He likely lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens.
About the Translator:
Richard Bett is professor of philosophy and classics at Johns Hopkins University. He edited The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism and has published widely on the subject. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
