The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity

Reaktion (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Matthijs van Boxsel believes that no one is intelligent enough to understand their own stupidity. In The Encyclopædia of Stupidity he shows how stupidity manifests itself in all areas, in everyone, at all times, proposing that stupidity is the foundation of our civilization. In short sections with such titles as ‘The Blunderers’ Club’, ‘Fools in Hell’, ‘Genealogy of Idiots’, and ‘The Aesthetics of the Empty Gesture’, stupidity is analysed on the basis of fairy tales, cartoons, triumphal arches, garden architecture, Baroque ceilings, jokes, flimsy excuses and science fiction. But Van Boxsel wants to do more than just assemble a ‘shadow cabinet’ of wisdom; he tries to fathom the logic of this opposite world. Where do understanding and intelligence begin and end? He examines mythic fools such as Cyclops and King Midas, cities such as Gotham, archetypes including the dumb blonde, and traditionally stupid animals such as the goose, the donkey and the headless chicken. Van Boxsel posits that stupidity is a condition for intelligence, that blunders stimulate progress, that failure is the basis for success. In this erudite and witty book he maintains that our culture is the product of a series of failed attempts to comprehend stupidity.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,423

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The vitality of stupidity.René ten Bos - 2007 - Social Epistemology 21 (2):139 – 150.
The stupidity of patients.A. R. Moore - 1979 - Journal of Medical Ethics 5 (4):207-208.
Sovereign stupidity and autoimmunity.Geoffrey Bennington - 2009 - In Pheng Cheah & Suzanne Guerlac (eds.), Derrida and the time of the political. Durham: Duke University Press.
Artificial intelligence meets natural stupidity.Drew McDermott - 1981 - In J. Haugel (ed.), Mind Design. MIT Press. pp. 5-18.
The stupidity of crowds.Jamie Whyte - 2010 - The Philosophers' Magazine 51 (51):62-67.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
17 (#849,202)

6 months
6 (#512,819)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Romantic ignorance.Anthony Reynolds - 2005 - Angelaki 10 (3):15 – 25.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references