Cohen's book was essentially a departure for Routledge in that it was aimed not solely at the academic market but at the general public. The book was then unique in presenting some of the direst and most obscure elements of philosophy in a single page doses - the one hundred and one 'problems'. These are presented as short stores with a riddle or question at the end. The pedagogical origins of the book were in Cohen's research for ways of stimulating seminar discussion in colleges, for students from a wide range of backgrounds, both in social sciences and beyond.

Thus the book challenged the conventional mode of philosophy, by representing the subject as directly 'accessible to all', without needing preliminary study.

From the publisher's point of view, it required a small investment in a special text design, to cope with the junking of the conventional 'chapter by chapter' format in favour of the one page 'puzzle.

These two features, the presentation of philosophical debates 'without preconditions' (without assumptions about the shared knowledge base) and the adoption such short texts meant the book had the ability to appeal to a much wider cultural market, as well as, in a very practical way, making the English text easier to quote on the internet.

So, for example, bloggers took to posing daily 'problems' on their internet sites such as 'Green Bamboo, The blog that doesn't know what it is ' which went steadily through the problems without seeming to even look at any of Martin Cohen's own answers! ' 

Typical of the bloggers who seem to just like to add a 'philosophical puzzle' to their page is 'An Hock's Space' which looks at one of the 'purest' problems, that of the threat to knowledge posed by 'the Cow in the Field'.

Or there is 'The Academy' - a" place where the thinkers enrolled in Philosophy for Teenagers can share their thoughts, doubts, speculations and assertions" which quotes various problems and adds its own images, for example illustrating the 'ethical dilemma' about a dog that is left to drown in a pond with a cheerful picture of dog holding a ball in its mouth.

A few more examples:

'Belinda', apparently a young female who lives in Australia and "likes critical thinking, sunflower yellow, hoarding books, the internet, anime, gaming and being opinionated" on her blog... or 

"Ain't No Vain, Im Just Self - Conscious !" who says "Just gonna blog this short and decent. Well, yesterday was Enterprise Module .... Taken from 101 Philosophy Problems by Martin Cohen -  What has gone wrong? ...  (Well, the link has gone wrong... )

To make up, here's the is methodical looking one which begins:

"Just before Christmas I got a book by Martin Cohen called 101 Philosophy Problems. Martin Cohen is apparently the editor of The Philosopher and a "lecturer" - whatever that means, he doesn't actually work at a university, but then, since I'm not really sure if "philosophy" is a real discipline anyway I'm not sure what to think about that. "

or the austere looking blog 'Eternity on a Rock' which quotes one obscure problems relating to statistics. pr ...  Elspeth' in her blog 'Deep Beneath her smile' quotes (rare event) one of the discussion, again of probability.

Often, the bloggers said they did not think much of the book, such as the methodical one (mentioned above) who says he is "going to go through the book and post my thoughts on the problems as I go along. I'm mostly doing this because I find some of Cohen's answers very unsatisfying "

Others quoted the book - but 'improved the language', such as  Random Ramblings? ï***
~ MaKiNG liFe A liTtlE tiNy mInI bIT mOrE iNteReStiNg ... :
 

[ Ed. - That's enough sites for the moment! - gives the idea...]

Routledge T&F lack the marketing connections that gain reviews, and 101 Philosophy Problems received just a few paragraphs in the academic's house journal, the London Times Higher Education Supplement, along with a short review Cohen's then local newspaper, the Ilkley Gazette.

Most likely the book would have been a very minor phenomenon were it not for the arrival of the Internet. Within a few years, the book had spawned translations in Spanish, Complex and Simple (Taiwan and mainland) Chinese, German (3 separate editions now) Portuguese, Korean, Dutch, Estonian, Japanese, Greek and Turkish. There is even a 'samizdat' Iranian edition.

The book has been seen in small bookshops in Outer Mongolia, as well as in numerous virtual bookshelves on 'Myspace'. It has influenced the style and format of other books in the area, and even spawned a heavily but conventionally publicised competitor, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher (by the journalist, Julian Baggini (2006). One reviewer of which (and one only) acknowledged " is essentially the same as that first successfully introduced by Martin Cohen's 101 Philosophy Problems." You can read that on his blog of course. Anyway, the book has now had three English editions, and had sold over 150 000 copies world-wide by 2008. 

101 Philosophy Problems is in many ways a new kind of book - accessible and democratic. It has fitted the arrival of the Internet age very well.