Deep thinking for the iPhone generation.

It’s hard to be philosophical about matters these days, not least because most of us have a pathetically weak grasp of philosophy. In this era of shallow clickbait and what Mr Alex Turner called “the endless stream of great TV”, the closest we’re likely to come to deep thought is following Twitter wit @kimkierkegaardashian, which combines the pop-culture phenom with the Danish existentialist: “Dressing for fall can be tough. Even a go-to sweater can’t insulate you from despair.” How very postmodern (see below).

But who among us has time or, frankly, inclination, to immerse ourselves in interminable and unfathomable philosophy tracts? With new book Philosophy Hacks by Messrs Robert Arp and Martin Cohen however, you need only dip a toe to accumulate a reservoir of dinner-party conversation that puts the sidebar of shame to, well, shame. A hundred of the most important theories have been distilled into a choppered-down “helicopter view”, an even more condensed “shortcut” and finally, a single-paragraph “hack”.

So, having gotten to grips with these slippery philosophical concepts, here’s how you can apply them to conversations in real life in a totally natural, not-at-all affected manner.

What are the defining characteristics of, say, a table? It holds stuff up? You could say the same of the floor. It has four legs? So does a dog. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato inferred that there must be a realm of “forms” where perfect table-ness exists, upon which all the examples we see are based, and which we can access through reasoning.

“The Schott Perfecto is the Platonic ideal of a biker jacket.”

Linked with French philosopher Mr Jean-François Lyotard’s 1979 treatise The Postmodern Condition (he wrote it in French, obviously), this wide-ranging movement mashes up disciplines, recycles earlier forms and disputes any claim to knowledge. The postmodernist “makes no claims to being original or even true”, and therefore probably loves streetwear.

“Meme culture is really postmodernism in its purest form.” *Superimposed over a picture of Confused/Math Lady*

Hinduism and Buddhism both advocate non-violence, but neither is as extreme as Jainism, which was founded around 500BC and today numbers five million followers. Believing that all beings are connected and to hurt another is to hurt oneself, Jainists won’t even kill plants. (Eating their leaves, flowers, fruits and nuts is fine as long as they’re left to grow.)

“I fancy a burger but the Jainist in me thinks we should probably try that new vegan spot instead. Ahimsa, after all. My shirt? Oh, it’s Stella McCartney. And the trainers are Veja.”

From whom we derive the adjective “Machiavellian”, meaning “scheming”, Mr Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat in the Renaissance period who penned a 1532 personal development book for monarchs. In it, he infamously concluded that it was better for rulers to be feared than loved, given that they couldn’t be both. So much for ahimsa.

“Hello, HR? I suspect that my boss learnt his management style from Il Principe.”

In his 1974 book Anarchy, State and Utopia, American philosopher Mr Nozick challenged the hedonic idea that the goal of life is the pursuit of pleasure by positing a device that could give the user any ultra-realistic experience they so desired. He wagered that, given the choice, we would choose real-life experiences over ones we received from a machine (however enjoyable), and therefore attempts to debunk hedonism.

“Of course, the iPhone XR simply brings us all one upgrade closer to Robert Nozick’s pleasure machine. That big screen does make Instagram look pretty great though...”