"Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes Volume 3" comprises the five books "Confucius in 60 Minutes", "Buddha in 60 Minutes", "Epicurus in 60 Minutes", "Descartes in 60 Minutes", and "Hobbes in 60 Minutes". Each short study sums up the key idea at the heart of each respective thinker and asks the question: "Of what use is this key idea to us today?" But above all the philosophers get to speak for themselves. Their most important statements are prominently presented, as direct quotations, in speech balloons with appropriate graphics, with exact indication of the source of each quote in the author's works. This light-hearted but nonetheless scholarly precise rendering of the ideas of each thinker makes it easy for the reader to acquaint him- or herself with the great questions of our lives. Because every philosopher who has achieved global fame has posed the "question of meaning": what is it that holds, at the most essential level, the world together?
For Confucius it is the search for the Dao, for the right path that leads us human beings to one another. For the Buddha it is a radical liberation from our needs and the approach, through meditation, to Nirvana. For Epicurus, by contrast, the meaning of life consists in the letting-be of our pleasures and the imbeddedness of existence in our bodies. Descartes, for his part, considers thinking to be the decisive quality of Man, allowing him to explore and master the world. Hobbes, finally, sees the central element of meaning to consist in humans' peaceful coexistence thanks to the founding of states, i.e. in a political act.
In other words, the meaning of the world and thus of our own lives remains, among philosophers, a topic of great controversy. One thing, though, is sure: each of these five thinkers struck, from his own perspective, one brilliant spark out of that complex crystal that is the truth.
