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Taking Philosophy Seriously initiates a meta-philosophical dialogue that challenges the division between academic and practical philosophy. In contradistinction to the perfectionist tradition of philosophy, it offers a melioristic view of philosophy that rethinks the approach to philosophy, reinvigorates its academic teaching and secures the respectability of its practitioners outside the academe. It addresses the neglected topic of philosophers’ education through a subtle analysis of the mentor-apprentice relationship and the remedies philosophers have found to its tensions. It reveals the problems inherent in emulating past practical philosophies from Alexandrian times, the Enlightenment...
This book presents an original worldview, Homo risibilis, wherein self-referential humor is proposed as the path leading from a tragic view of life to a liberating embrace of human ridicule. Humor is presented as a conceptual tool for holding together contradictions and managing the unresolvable conflict of the human condition till Homo risibilis resolves the inherent tension without epistemological cost. This original approach to the human condition allows us to effectively address life’s ambiguities without losing sight of its tragic overtones and brings along far-ranging personal and social benefits. By defining the problem that other philosophies and many religions attempt to solve in ...
This volume presents the state of the art of philosophical practice worldwide from the perspectives of leading philosophical practitioners, both counselors and institutional consultants. Philosophical practice has developed in different directions in different parts of the world, with the focus in Europe and North America being mostly on client counseling and corporate consultancy, while in Asia it is more community-based and more closely aligned with psychotherapy. In all cases, philosophical practitioners strive to transcend the boundaries of academic philosophy and reach out to the public, to corporations, to the policy makers, to the medical, legal and many other professions. The chapter...
An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications. By exploring the works of both Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, and Søren Kierkegaard, Lydia B. Amir finds a rich tapestry of ideas about the comic, the tragic, humor, and related concepts such as irony, ridicule, and wit. Amir focuses chiefly on these two thinkers, but she also includes Johann Georg Hamann, an influence of Kierkegaards who was himself influenced by Shaftesbury. All three thinkers were devout Christians but were intensely critical of the organized Christianity of their milieux, and humor played an important role in their responses. The author examines the epistemological, ethical, and religious roles of humor in their philosophies and proposes a secular philosophy of humor in which humor helps attain the philosophic ideals of self-knowledge, truth, rationality, virtue, and wisdom, as well as the more ambitious goals of liberation, joy, and wisdom.
Calling on philosophers as the custodians of rationality to reconsider their responsibility toward their communities and the state of civilization at large, this book considers philosophy to be a practical discipline. Largely foreign to philosophers and non-philosophers alike, this conception of philosophy discloses the relevance of its unique contributions to contemporary society. The book offers a compelling and accessible analysis of philosophy also in relation to religion, psychology, the New Age Movement, and globalization, and exemplifies through a wide range of current problems how philosophers can fulfil their responsibility. Its argument that responsibility lies where one is capable of doing what is needed, and even more so, when no one else can do it, targets philosophers. However, its innovative study of contemporary philosophy coupled with its original contributions to the problems at hand will engage academics and students from other disciplines, as well as a general readership.
This book investigates the role of humor in the good life, specifically as discussed by three prominent French intellectuals who were influenced by Nietzsche's thought: Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, and Clément Rosset. Lydia Amir begins by discussing Nietzsche’s reception in France, and she explains why and how he came to be considered a "philosopher of laughter" in the French academe. Each of the subsequent three chapters focuses on the significance of humor and laughter in the good life as advocated by Bataille, Deleuze, and Rosset. These chapters also explore the complex relationship between the comic and the tragic, and of humor and laughter to irony, satire, and ridicule. The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter makes an invaluable contribution to recent interpretive work done on Bataille and Deleuze, and offers further introduction to the relatively understudied Rosset. It illuminates the philosophies of these three thinkers, their connection to Nietzsche, and, overall, the significant role that humor plays in philosophy.
Philosophy is more than just an academic subject; it is useful and enriching in everyday life as well. This is the main conviction of philosophical practitioners. Philosophical practice has been developing as a new movement within philosophy for several decades now, although it has ancient roots. Today, there are philosophical practitioners throughout the world who exchange ideas and experience in journals and during regular international conferences, such as the 14th International Conference on Philosophical Practice, which took place in Bern, Switzerland, in 2016 under the main topic “Understanding the Other and Oneself.” A selection of thirteen papers from this conference, as well as five panel contributions on various subjects regarding its main topic, are gathered in this book. These contributions to the conference will be of significance and interest not only for philosophers and philosophical practitioners, but also for psychotherapists, counsellors, pedagogues and other professionals.
This yearbook, the sole publication of its kind, addresses the contemporary interest in the philosophy of humor. It invites philosophers from various traditions to share studies of humor, laughter, and the comic, and their roles (e.g., epistemological, ethical, aesthetic) within the history and practice of philosophy. It publishes not only scholarly articles of the highest quality, but also humorous or satirical pieces of philosophic interest.
In this book, 34 renowned philosophical practitioners from 20 different countries present a variety of dialogue methods for philosophical practice, which have never before been published in such a compact and compiled form. By having Socrates and his method of maieutics (the art of midwifery of the soul, as he called it) as one of its main sources of inspiration, the book offers different methodological approaches in order to prompt people to wonder, to reflect, to change perspective, and to think differently; in short, to make people philosophize about life and the way they live it. (Series: Report of the Global Ethic Initiative Austria / Schriftenreihe der Initiative Weltethos Osterreich - Vol. 9) [Subject: Philosophy]
The present book addresses the background, rationale, general structure, and particular aims and arguments characterizing our third and last volume about "humor" and "cruelty". A guiding foray is provided into the vast expert literature that can be retrieved in the Western humanities and social sciences on these two terms. Pivotal thinkers and crucial notions are duly identified, highlighted, and examined. Apposite subsidiary references are also included, especially with regard to psychodynamics and clinical psychology, existentialism, feminism, liberalism, Marxism, and representative recent studies in the philosophy of humor and its cognates. The stage is thus set for the exploration and assessment of the conflicts between humor and cruelty unfolding in Part 2 of Volume 3. Being the philosophical terminus of our entire research project, Volume 3 counterbalances, complements, and, occasionally, complexifies the numerous forms of mutual cooperation between humor and cruelty that the preceding Volume 2 had unearthed and discussed.