Book Review: Self-Help Philosophy

Abstract

Introduction:  In reading The Thinker’s Way, I found myself both impressed and frustrated. On the one hand, I was pleased to find an author who is also a philosopher advocating and demonstrating a viewpoint I’ve always wanted to believe, which is that philosophy, when done properly, provides us with the ideal skills for engaging in self-understanding, self-evaluation, and self-improvement. To one who has devoted his or her life to intellectual inquiry, there is little more discouraging than seeing how often people with impressive intellectual acumen fail completely to apply their skills of scrutiny to the activity of self-reflection. In contrast to this, Chaffee at times writes in the spirit of the Socratic quest for self-knowledge, and seems to promote the essentially Aristotelian ideal of discovering for oneself the elements of the good life while providing one with some of the mental tools for developing the habits needed to realize such a life.