101 experimentů z každodenní filosofie – Droit Roger-Pol (2003)

The book by the French philosopher Roger-Pol Droit is among the successful publications. It won the French Television Award for essayistic work in 2001, and the rights to its translation have been granted to publishers in sixteen countries. At first glance, it is a very simple book, composed of 101 short texts. Each of these texts serves as a guide for reflection, contemplation, or unusual activity. For example: imagining how an apple is peeled, repeating the name of a common object twenty times, and so on. In some cases, it is about realizing the strangeness of certain situations that we otherwise consider completely ordinary. For instance, walking in the dark, overeating, trying on clothes, going to the cinema during the day. The author uses simple and easily understandable language, but the stated goal is philosophical: to verify that in quite ordinary gestures and everyday actions, much unusual and remarkable can be hidden. The lesson that follows is surprising: interesting adventures can be experienced even in seemingly banal and stereotypical everyday life. The playful tricks and instructions of the French philosopher shake the certainties on which, for example, our identity, language, our relationships to space and time, and our memory rest.