Breakfast with Socrates Book Summary - Breakfast with Socrates Book explained in key points

Breakfast with Socrates summary

Name: Breakfast with Socrates
Rating: 4.4 (84 reviews)
Author: Robert Rowland Smith

Robert Rowland Smith

The Philosophy of Everyday Life

Table of Contents

Breakfast with Socrates
Summary of 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

Philosophy arms you to make wise, practical decisions in a complex world.

Perhaps you’ve always thought that philosophy isn’t your cup of tea. Think again. Philosophy is not only about asking big questions like, “What is the meaning of life?” It’s about asking the right questions, big and small.

Philosophy is as concerned with “How much should I tip the waiter?” as it is with “Does God exist?” It’s about looking at the world around you and being able to make wise decisions throughout your everyday life.

In fact, the original Greek word “philosophia” literally means “love of wisdom.” Wisdom is the skill of assessing a complicated world and making sound judgments through reflection, i.e. asking the right questions in different situations.

Making wise decisions in your everyday life is philosophy.

A wise example in the real world: it would be wise to consider where, how and when your spinach was grown. Was it grown in a country that has had a recent salmonella outbreak? Were loads of fertilizer and pesticides used? When was it picked? How much longer will it be healthy to eat? These are questions a wise person asks to make a practical decision in the supermarket.

However, wisdom should not be confused with cleverness. Cleverness is primarily concerned with triumphing over one’s opponent in an argument. Sure, you may have won an argument with your partner, but would it have been wiser to walk away in the first place? Are you happier with winning or living peacefully?

Ultimately, you will be happier with philosophy in your life. Ask yourself the big questions sometimes, but ask the small questions always. Love wisdom. Practice reflection. Live philosophy.

Philosophy arms you to make wise, practical decisions in a complex world.

Descartes: If you’re awake, you’re thinking, and therefore you must exist.

Even though we do it every day, waking up can be quite a shock – we can wake up with a wicked hangover, after too little rest, or next to the wrong lover.

But why does waking surprise us so? It is because in the moment before you awake, you are, by definition, asleep. You are not conscious of the fact that you are about to wake.

Freud: The morning routine is a fierce psychological competition between the ego and superego.

Certain of your own existence, you perform a series of morning rituals: shower, shit, shave, dress, eat and rush out the door. As always, however, preparing to leave for work is more complicated than we imagine.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian neurologist, immersed himself in the newly evolving field of psychoanalysis, a way of studying the unconscious mind. According to Freud, our minds consist of different forces constantly struggling with each other:

Nietzsche: Abandon the herd’s fantasies, master your destiny and join the ranks of supermen.

Every day, billions of human beings commute in herd-like unison to toil in offices and complete series of arbitrary bureaucratic procedures under oppressive fluorescent lights.

Perhaps you’re sitting on the train reading this right now. Look to the right. Look to the left. Surrounded as you are by comrades of the herd, this is the perfect moment to consider the ideas of 19th-century hypercritical German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He challenged us to ask ourselves, “What if I had to live this life over again? Would I be able to stand it?”

Marx: Work is wage slavery. You have nothing to lose but your chains.

You have disengaged from the commuting herd and arrived at the location of your employment. As you cross the threshold, what sort of agreement are you getting yourself into? What is work really about?

Classically defined within the capitalist system, work is the exchange of one’s labor for money.

Weber: If you work hard and live simply, you will become wealthy.

Shortly after Marx, one of sociology’s founders, German Max Weber, offered competing ideas about the nature of work.

While Marx believed that the wealthy are slave-masters who exploit the average worker, Weber believed that the rich benefit from the capitalist system because they were once poor but became wealthy through hard work and frugal living.

Learn from French feminists: Let go of your gender and live in peace with your partner.

Even the most tranquil relationships include some conflict. It is inevitable given the emotional and social investments involved. This makes it very difficult for each person to remain objective, unemotional and rational. Tensions are easily inflamed.

People often blame their partner’s faults on traits attributed to maleness and femaleness. Men are assumed to be insensitive and angry, women as emotional and overly dramatic. It can often seem as if the row is between mankind and womankind themselves.

Buddhism: Meditation releases you from suffering.

After a long day, you may enjoy meditating in the warm waters of your tub, conjuring up Eastern images of candles, oils, low lights, flowers and serene relaxation.

Contrary to this image, Buddhist meditation is not about maximizing relaxation; rather, it is about heightened consciousness. In the Buddhist tradition, meditation means allowing yourself to live completely in the moment, being intensely aware of everything in your vicinity.

Jung: Dreaming connects you to the collective unconscious, the world’s soul.

The end of your waking hours is near. As you drift into deep slumber, consider the final element of your day: sleep itself. Sleep has confounded humanity for thousands of years, and, considering that we sleep for about 20 years of our lives, it’s certainly an activity worth thinking about.

There are many competing ideas about what our exciting nocturnal scenarios, or dreams, mean. Freud’s colleague and psychoanalyst rival, Carl Jung, believed that not only do we have a personal unconscious but a combined human dream state as well. This idea obviously requires deeper exploration.

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What is Breakfast with Socrates about?

Breakfast with Socrates (2009) whips you through a normal day with commentary from history’s most venerated thinkers, explaining exactly how their major contributions to philosophy, psychology, sociology and theology impact your daily routine: wake up with Descartes, brace yourself for a world of Freudian conflict, and when you go to work, either submit to Marx’s wage slavery or embrace Weber’s work ethic. Argue with French feminists and then slip into a warm bath, bubbling in Buddha’s heightened consciousness. Finally, end the day by drifting away into Jung’s collective unconscious.

Who should read Breakfast with Socrates?

Anyone who loves asking big and small questions about the nature of our world
Anyone who wants to discover deeper, wiser ways to think about their everyday lives
Anyone who studied the great philosophers in college but needs a refresher course in their main ideas

About the Author

Robert Rowland Smith is a former Oxford Philosophy Fellow who currently writes for the Independent and London Evening Standard. He has been featured in The Sunday Telegraph and Observer magazines, and on BBC Radio and the delightful Philosophy Bites podcast. Smith lives in London and regularly delivers lectures regarding the philosophy of everyday life.

Categories with Breakfast with Socrates

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