Daniel Klein

Daniel Klein is an American writer who studied philosophy at Harvard and began his career writing television comedy before turning to novels and books about philosophy. With his college friend Thomas Cathcart he wrote Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (2007), which explains branches of philosophy, from logic and metaphysics to ethics and existentialism, through jokes. In Travels with Epicurus (2012) he reflects on growing old well from a Greek island, and Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It (2015) gathers favourite philosophical sayings with commentary.

Key ideas

• Jokes and philosophical arguments share a structure: both play with concepts and overturn expectations.
• Old age can be a distinct stage of life to be savoured rather than resisted, as Epicurus suggests.
• Pleasure, as Epicurus understood it, lies in simple goods such as friendship and conversation.

Major works

• Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (2007, with Thomas Cathcart)
• Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates (2009, with Thomas Cathcart)
• Travels with Epicurus (2012)
• Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It (2015)

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