The Bed of Procrustes
The Bed of Procrustes is a collection of philosophical aphorisms by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. Taking its title from the Greek myth of Procrustes, who stretched or cut his victims to fit his bed, the book uses short, sharp statements to attack the human tendency to force complex reality into neat but false categories. Across topics such as risk, knowledge, success, modernity, and ethics, Taleb condenses ideas from his longer books into terse, often provocative lines. Part of his Incerto series on uncertainty and probability, the book values experience and skepticism over academic abstraction and conventional wisdom. Brief and quotable, it is meant to be read slowly, with each aphorism inviting argument, disagreement, and reflection rather than easy agreement.
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What you might want to know about The Bed of Procrustes
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A collection of philosophical aphorisms on knowledge, risk, and the way people force reality to fit flawed models.
It refers to the Greek myth of Procrustes, who forced victims to fit his bed, used by Taleb as a metaphor for forcing reality into false models.
Yes. It is part of Taleb's Incerto series, which includes The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and Antifragile.
The Bed of Procrustes was written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
The Bed of Procrustes is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.