PRAISE
"What a concept! This highly original book offers deep life lessons and philosophical concepts inspired by the mind and questions of a 7-year old. Marcel is a deep thinker on philosophy, psychology and culture and he cuts through difficult academic concepts to give us new understandings. Despite its dry reputation, philosophy is always personal. It gives us the chance to see the world with fresh eyes and lose the categories and assumptions that slowly accrete to, and sometimes deaden, the adult mind... but which children are mercifully free of. Inspiring and important."
-Tom Butler-Bowdon
Author of 50 Philosophy Classics and 50 Psychology Classics
"I thoroughly enjoyed reading your book. I admit my knowledge concerning philosophers is limited but your clear and concise explanations of their works was enlightening. The simple yet clever words spoken by Amara, and interpreted to explain a deeper philosophical meaning was done in a clear and insightful manner. I found your personal honesty concerning your previous struggles to be heartfelt and close to home. My brother battled drugs and alcohol for years before sobering up and, ironically, getting into social work. Once this book is in hard copy I will send him a copy. Naturally, I'll take one as well."
-American father of Amara's kindergarten friend
Review "A MIND LIKE A CHAMELEON" by Marcel Emmenegger
Is philosophizing an activity for grown-up people? The work of Marcel Emmenegger questions this assumption by exploring the world through the eyes of his seven years old daughter, Amara. Social justice, intersubjectivity, morality, free will, happiness, expression of feelings, materialism, identity are the topics of eight short essays in which the starting point is one of Amara's considerations on the world she lives in and of which she tries to make sense. The result of adopting the holistic and pretheoretical perspective that characterizes the powerful realm of childhood is a totally subverted order, where it is the adult that learns and the child that gives lessons to adulthood. What is taught is somewhat extraordinary and deeply philosophical: Not only humans matter in the world, inequality is not a fatality but a collective responsibility, happiness is something that can be chosen and many other interesting hints. Even most importantly: why should a sentence be either true or false? A child-like approach to reality gives way to an authentic attitude towards knowledge, where cultural biases do not interfere in a massive way as it happens with adults. Emmenegger exploits this potential by leading the reader in a pleasant journey through the history of philosophy from the Greeks to Foucault, from Kant to Nietzsche. Each chapter raises questions and attempts to give answers in a genuine philosophical way. We would need to read more works like Emmenegger's, for they bring back philosophy to its own nature of spontaneous everyday activity. As a point of fact, it is the attitude of making sense of the world, which is primarily developed during childhood, that makes us human. It takes place in everyday life and is the core essence of philosophizing.
-Venera Russo, PhD candidate, Sofia University
"I read the Lessons and find them profound, engaging, and philosophical through and through. Good for you for creating such a text!"
-Prof. Dr. Sc. Aneta Karageorgieva, Sofia University, Philosophical Faculty