Seeking Wisdom
Peter Bevelin begins his fascinating book with Confucius' great wisdom: "A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake." Seeking Wisdom is the result of Bevelin's learning about attaining wisdom. His quest for wisdom originated partly from making mistakes himself and observing those of others but also from the philosophy of super-investor and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. A man whose simplicity and clarity of thought was unequal to anything Bevelin had seen. In addition to naturalist Charles Darwin and Munger, Bevelin cites an encyclopedic range of thinkers: from first-century BCE Roman poet Publius Terentius to Mark Twain-from Albert Einstein to Richard Feynman-from 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In the book, he describes ideas and research findings from many different fields. This book is for those who love the constant search for knowledge. It is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." There are roads that lead to unhappiness. An understanding of how and why we can "die" should help us avoid them. We can't eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us. Using exemplars of clear thinking and attained wisdom, Bevelin focuses on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgments and tools to improve our thinking.
Stats for nerds
30recommend
45mentions
34people
2009–2026years
84% recommend13% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Peter Bevelin's Seeking Wisdom.
The other day someone on here recommended The Philosopher's Toolkit, and I ordered a copy based on that recommendation. I've only started to dip into various parts, but I can already confirm that it is a good introductory compendium of the basics of philosophy, logic, and argumentation. In the same vein is Daniel Dennett's Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.
A personal favorite is Frances Yates's The Art of Memory (think: intersection of rhetoric, mnemonic systems, philosophical systems, and the occult during the Renaissance).
Matthew Butterick's Practical Typography and Typography for Lawyers. Bryan Garner's The Winning Brief.
Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis. Adler's How to Read a Book. Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.
I could go on. Book posts are my favorite posts on HN, but they always lighten my wallet and at home I'm surrounded with ever-growing piles of great material.
- There are a variety of places you could look further on this topic, but I’ll throw in a recommendation for the book Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin.
- * Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
* Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger
* The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You
* The Great Mental Models
- I love the physical books in my library because I can easily see the titles and I can turn to them easily when I need to jog my memory.
This might be really weird but when I have a tough question, I like to think about what my favorite authors in my library might say, and I'll take the book out and flip through the pages, looking for their thoughts on the subject. When I spend hours reading a book, I internalize that author's voice, beliefs, and thought process. I don't need to remember all the tiny details but I remember their thought process which I consider priceless. I was going through a book called Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger and they have pages of questions to ask in the back and I realized I was automatically asking all of them on a daily basis. I had internalized that thinking.
- Hello All! What books would you recommend for a teenager who is trying to discover their passion for computer science and form a foundation of core mental models about life? Also books that help them learn computer science foundations would be helpful. Some examples I was thinking were
- Principles By Ray Dalio - Seeking Wisdom by Charlie Munger
Thanks!
- Seeking Wisdom is also really, really good. Super approachable and underrated.
The Personal MBA is also great, but I do agree that it's poor form for Josh to recommend his own book.
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