Journalist Bettijane Levine reports on the rise of philosophy in a
current popular culture wave of American courses, forums, counseling,
and self-help books. She mentions that an American Philosophical
Practitioners' Association has been formed by Lou Marinoff, author of
Plato not Prosac: Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems.
Levine also describes the philosophically-oriented corporate consulting
practice of Tom Morris, author of If Aristotle Ran General Motors.
She refers to another book (but does not provide the title) by Prof.
William Irwin, a textbook used in college philosophy courses that study
TV shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons. She notes that
NPR has begun a program called "Philosophy Talk" hosted by Kenneth
Taylor and John Parry.
Although Socrates is the key figure in this popular philosophy
movement, Levine does not appear to know much about him. She
mistakes his historical date as "about 500 B.C." Her article is sketchy, and her
sources of information are biased in that they are selling philosophy to
the public--or trying to sell it. Yet it's clear that the article does
have research value because Levine has done some leg work to identify a
variety of sources that could help to answer the research question: what
is Socrates' influence today? In particular she mentions three possibly
helpful books by current or former philosophy professors.
Comparing Levine's article with Ron Grossman's story on Platonic bomber
Steven Kayevitch, both have limited research value because they are
simply entertainment-section newspaper articles produced under
journalistic time and space constraints. Yet Levine's article is much
more useful
than Grossman's, research-wise, because it proves more leads for
researchers to follow. Where Grossman's story is purely anecdotal in
refering to Kayevitch's book, Levine mentions at least three books, a
trade association and a radio program, some or all of which may be good
sources of information. Levine's article also provides search terms by
giving the names of seven current or former professors who are
attempting to popularize Plato.
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