Re-inventing Philosophy as a Way of Life
Series editors: Keith Ansell-Pearson, Matthew Sharpe, and Michael Ure

For the most part, academic philosophy is considered a purely theoretical discipline that aims at systematic knowledge; contemporary philosophers do not, as a rule, think that they or their audience will lead better lives by doing philosophy. Recently, however, we have seen a powerful resurgence of interest in the countervailing ancient view that philosophy facilitates human flourishing. Philosophy, Seneca famously stated, teaches us doing, not saying. It aims to transform how we live. This ancient ideal has continually been reinvented, from the Renaissance through to late modernity and is now central to contemporary debates about philosophy’s role and future.

This series is the first synoptic study of the re-inventions of the idea of philosophy as an ethical pursuit or ‘way of life’. Collectively and individually, the books in this series will answer the following questions:

1.How have philosophers reanimated the ancient model of philosophy? How have they revised ancient assumptions, concepts and practices in the light of wider cultural shifts in the modern world? What new ideas of the good life and new arts, exercises, disciplines and consolations have they formulated?

2.Do these reinventions successfully re-establish the idea that philosophy can transform our lives? What are the standard criticisms of this philosophical ambition and how have they been addressed?

3.What are the implications for these new versions of philosophy as a way of life for contemporary issues that concern the nature of philosophy, its procedures, limits, ends, and its relationship to wider society?

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY

Bergson: Thinking Beyond the Human Condition, Keith Ansell Pearson

The Pornographic Age, Alain Badiou

Happiness, Alain Badiou

The Incandescent, Michel Serres

Hominescence, Michel Serres