THE ART OF THINKING

Don’t worry, be happy.

Philosophy developed as a discipline to reason out the pathways to a good life: What is the nature of pleasure, are there decisions that are right regardless of the contexts, how can we balance individual desire with communal needs? Ruiz, who teaches philosophy at the University of Córdoba in Spain, offers a world tour of philosophers who asked such questions and whose answers can inform our own modern lives. We attain these goals, Ruiz says, through critical thinking: a rational process of balancing doubt and belief, and a way of living with good judgment and acceptance. Much of this book’s advice will seem unchallenging to a readership reared on decades of self-help manuals. “To be happy, we must live calmly and serenely, at peace with our fellow human beings, but most of all, with ourselves,” the author writes. “To feel is to become aware, to be able to do what, according to Socrates and the Oracle of Delphi, was the most difficult act of wisdom there is: to know oneself.” And: “Just remember that the habit of comparing yourself with others can be harmful and rarely if ever brings joy into your life.” Everyone from Plato and Bertrand Russell to Steve Jobs makes an appearance here, and, while there’s little new to add to our attempts to be and to do good, there is a comforting familiarity to the book’s moral chestnuts. “True happiness,” Ruiz writes, “is something that’s learned, and if we learn it well, it will eventually become a way of being.” If we learn anything from this book, it will be to return to the philosophers who taught their readers to find solace in the simple.

A welcome compendium of self-help guidance, drawn from centuries of sages.