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Books

Philosophy and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, edited by Nicholas Joll

Massimo Pigliucci finds his way around Philosophy and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Years ago I was set to spend a full weekend in my apartment, as it was forecast to snow outside. I decided that I needed some good reading to keep me company. I had heard of something called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), which was supposed to be clever and funny. It was, and I’ve never traveled without a towel since.

Little did I know that a few years later I would switch career and become a philosopher; a profession that Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, lampooned mercilessly – recall the panicked philosophers who bitterly complain to the supercomputer Deep Thought that if it figures out the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything, they will be left without a job.

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