Lesley Lavine
Review
I Think, Therefore I Am: All the Philosophy You Need to Know is the literary equivalent of having coffee with a very enthusiastic philosophy student who’s crammed for every exam but never actually argued with a professor. It’s breezy, accessible, and surprisingly fun for a book that name-drops more dead thinkers than a haunted library. I finished it in two days, which says something about how digestible it is—philosophy without the headache, just enough big words to feel clever.
The strength of the book lies in its historical sweep. It gives you a whirlwind tour through the major schools of thought, from the pre-Socratics pondering fire and water, to postmodernists breaking everything into interpretive dance. It doesn’t get too bogged down in jargon, and that’s refreshing. You come out of it with a sense of who thought what and when, and maybe even why—sort of like a philosophical speed-dating session.
But here’s the catch: it’s a jack of all trades, and you feel it. The explanations are often skin-deep, more like philosophical elevator pitches than real dives into the ideas. Just when it starts to get juicy, it moves on to the next name, the next quote, the next historical moment. So while it’s a great starting point—and I’d recommend it to anyone curious about the general shape of Western philosophy—it left me wishing it had stayed a little longer with each thought before chasing the next one.
In the end, it’s a pleasant read, and it does what it promises on the cover. But if you’re looking for something that actually makes you wrestle with ideas rather than just nod along, you’ll probably want to follow it up with something meatier. Still, for a gateway into the philosophical multiverse, it’s not a bad place to start. Just don’t expect enlightenment—more like a well-lit hallway with lots of labelled doors.
Context
Published in 2011, I Think, Therefore I Am is a compact, witty introduction to the world of philosophy, written for people who don’t want to wade through 900 pages of dusty metaphysical treatises just to understand why people argue about chairs not existing.
Lesley Levene’s book functions as a narrative journey through the history of ideas, from Ancient Greece to the modern day. It gives readers a broad understanding of the key thinkers, schools, and concepts that have shaped the way we think about everything—from the self and society to morality, knowledge, and the big ol’ question of existence.