Speech :: Mark Vernon

markvernon.com 'genuinely useful, lucid, informative and wise'

	What Not To Say is about the moments in life when you are silenced - overwhelmed with embarrassment, gobsmacked, dumbstruck. Someone confronts you with a situation, and you have no idea how to respond. What Not To Say takes those situations, unpacks them with philosophy, and - understanding gained - explores what's at stake. Why philosophy? Because ever since Socrates, philosophy has always been gripped by questions of life. The ancient Greeks saw it as something of an art. They understood that the moments when we are stunned or confounded - when lost for words - are some of the most valuable in life: it is then that people find themselves at the limits of their understanding of things and are ready to learn more.
	Some of the situations considered in What Not To Say: (mouse over to stop situations)

	And to explore the matter further:
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The Book

What Not To Say might be said to have three broad aims:

First, to enable readers to speak more truthfully in difficult situations: as the Delphic inscription had it, to know thyself.

Second, to allow readers to talk about personal problems in a wider perspective, something that in itself often eases the pain.

Third, to gain an alternative introduction to some of the themes of philosophy, and some of the thoughts of its biggest thinkers.