A review by konniecanread
Philosophy of Psychedelics by Chris Letheby

informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Philosophical discussions of psychedelics usually suck. Not only are psychedelic experiences notoriously ineffable and hard to discuss, but taking psychedelics also tends to warp your sense of reality to some variation of "everything is actually one thing, man", making serious discussion impossible. So asking people about the philosophical implications of psychedelics usually gets you one of two answers: non-users will tell you "They're drugs that warp your sense of reality, they have no philosophical significance", while users will tell you all about the robot goblins they met while doing DMT and why they are actually realer than everything else.

And then there's this book. It looks at the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, their role in epistemology and philosophy of mind, and pays particularly close attention to their interaction with philosophy of self. Throughout this, it's science-based, well-argued, and clearly familiar both with first-hand psychedelic experience and the neuroscience that underlies it, straddling the middle ground between "psychedelics are everything" and "psychedelics are useless". It's clear, it's precise, it's so easy to read that it became my before-bed book. I love it.