Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (book)

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry/dp/0060589469/

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is a popular book on philosophy that virtually none of its readers understand.  It is popular because the author was very much part of popular culture before he saw the problem with western philosophy, so he was able to write well to his audience.  But this doesn't mean that his audience is capable of understanding the message, and based on the reviews I read on Amazon, none of the readers get it.  The book is ultimately a critique of Plato's view of universal truth, and a discussion of some of the ill effects that Plato's view caused.

This book is actually very closely related to The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture.  This is because the pre-Plato Athenian view of truth is basically the same as the Old Testament view of truth.

Bought this book about a month ago and it sits unread on my shelf. I was originally excited to read it, but then I  had second thoughts about it because of its popularity. Will dive into it eagerly now.

I first read this book long ago.  I had rejected Plato on my own and mentioned it to someone who recommended this book to me.  But I reread it this week and now I see that the author never developed much of an alternative.  The book is mostly about gradually easing normal people into seeing the problem with Plato, which most readers don't understand anyway.  But in fact there is more real insight just in the etymology of "true":

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=true

So English culture appears to have been infected by Plato around 1200.  Before that, the English "true" had the same meaning as the Hebrew "emet" found in the Old Testament.