The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
Hardcover – April 27, 2011
Price
$8.33
Format
Hardcover
Pages
128
Publisher
Penguin
Publication Date
First Edition (April 27, 2011
ISBN-13
978-1846144585
Dimensions
5.43 x 0.67 x 8.03 inches
Weight
6.3 ounces
Description
Nassim Nicholas Taleb spends most of his time as a flâneur, meditating in cafés across the planet. A former trader, he is currently Distinguished Professor at New York University's Polytechnic Institute. His books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan have been published in thirty-one languages.
Features & Highlights
- In this profound and playful book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb presents his ideas about life in the form of aphorisms, the world's earliest - and most memorable - literary form. Procrustes was a character from Greek mythology who abducted travellers and invited them to spend the night in a special bed, which they had to fit to perfection. They never did. Those who were too tall had their legs chopped off; those who were too short were stretched. Every aphorism here is about a Procrustean bed of sorts - we humans, facing the limits of our knowledge, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies and pre-packaged narratives. Only by embracing the unexpected - and accepting what we don't know - can we see the world as it really is.
