Socrates in Love: Philosophy for a Passionate Heart

Socrates in Love: Philosophy for a Passionate Heart
Author: Christopher Phillips
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2011-01-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0393341216

“[Phillips takes] philosophy out of the ivory tower and into the street.”—Los Angeles Times Christopher Phillips goes to the heart of philosophy and Socratic discourse to discover what we’re all looking for: the kind of love that makes life worthwhile. That is, love not defined only as eros, or erotic love, but in all its classical varieties. Love of neighbor, love of country, love of God, love of life, and love of wisdom—each is clarified and invigorated in Phillips’s Socratic dialogues with people from all walks of life and from all over the world.

Socrates in Love

Socrates in Love
Author: Armand D’Angour
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1408883902

An innovative and insightful exploration of the passionate early life of Socrates and the influences that led him to become the first and greatest of philosophers Socrates: the philosopher whose questioning gave birth to the ideas of Western thought, and whose execution marked the end of the Athenian Golden Age. Yet despite his pre-eminence among the great thinkers of history, little of his life story is known. What we know tends to begin in his middle age and end with his trial and death. Our conception of Socrates has relied upon Plato and Xenophon – men who met him when he was in his fifties and a well-known figure in war-torn Athens. There is mystery at the heart of Socrates' story: what turned the young Socrates into a philosopher? What drove him to pursue with such persistence, at the cost of social acceptance and ultimately of his life, a whole new way of thinking about the meaning of existence? In this revisionist biography, Armand D'Angour draws on neglected sources to explore the passions and motivations of young Socrates, showing how love transformed him into the philosopher he was to become. What emerges is the figure of Socrates as never previously portrayed: a heroic warrior, an athletic wrestler and dancer – and a passionate lover. Socrates in Love sheds new light on the formative journey of the philosopher, finally revealing the identity of the woman who Socrates claimed inspired him to develop ideas that have captivated thinkers for 2,500 years.

Philosopher of the Heart

Philosopher of the Heart
Author: Clare Carlisle
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0374721696

Philosopher of the Heart is the groundbreaking biography of renowned existentialist Søren Kierkegaard’s life and creativity, and a searching exploration of how to be a human being in the world. Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence—how to be a human being in the world?—while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him. Much of his creativity sprang from his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, a relationship which remained decisive for the rest of his life. He deliberately lived in the swim of human life in Copenhagen, but alone, and died exhausted in 1855 at the age of 42, bequeathing his remarkable writings to his erstwhile fiancée. Clare Carlisle’s innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard’s life as far as possible from his own perspective, to convey what it was like actually being this Socrates of Christendom—as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards.

Socrates' Daimonic Art

Socrates' Daimonic Art
Author: Elizabeth S. Belfiore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2012-03-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107378230

Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater.

What Would Socrates Do?

What Would Socrates Do?
Author: Joel Alden Schlosser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107067421

This book challenges popular modern views of Socrates by examining the political significance of his activity in ancient Athens.

America the Philosophical

America the Philosophical
Author: Carlin Romano
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 690
Release: 2013-04-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0345804708

This bold, insightful book argues that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace for truth and debate. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that the United States is an anti-intellectual country. Instead he provides a richly reported overview of American thought, arguing that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers ditch artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.

The Good Life and the Greater Good in a Global Context

The Good Life and the Greater Good in a Global Context
Author: Laura Savu Walker
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498522335

The Good Life and the Greater Good in a Global Context offers a timely contribution to the debates about the good life that surround us every day in the media, politics, the humanities, and social sciences. The authors’ examine the relationship between the good life and the greater good as represented across different genres, media, cultures, and disciplines. This enables them to develop a framework of values that transcends the overly rational and individualistic model of the good life advanced by neoliberalism and the “happiness industry.” Thus, over and against normative conceptualizations of the good life that reduce meaning to money, creativity to consumption, and compassion to self-help, the contributors propose an ethically charged philosophy of living that views the care for the self, for the other, and for the planet as the catalysts of true human flourishing. In addition to recovering the original usage of “the good life” from classical thought—especially the Aristotelian understanding of eudaimonia as living well and doing well—the essays gathered here highlight its entanglement with distinctly modern ideas of happiness, wellbeing, flourishing, progress, revolution, democracy, the American Dream, utopia, and sustainability. As such, the essays capture the breadth and depth of the conversation about the good life that is of central importance to how we relate to the past, engage the present, and envision the future.

Love and Compassion

Love and Compassion
Author: John P. Miller
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1487522576

In Love and Compassion, John P. Miller explores different forms of love, including self-love, the love of others, compassion, the love of learning, as well as nonviolence, and how they have the potential to improve education.

Holistic Education and Embodied Learning

Holistic Education and Embodied Learning
Author: John P. Miller
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2017-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 168123842X

Learning often begins with an experience in the body. Our body can tighten or feel expansive depending on different learning contexts. This experience of learning in the body is crucial to holistic education. This book explores embodied learning from several perspectives. This first section explores how psychology can inform us about embodied learning; for example, the work of Carl Jung and Wilhelm Reich devoted much of their thinking to how energy manifests itself in the body. Meditation and movement are also examined as ways of embodied learning; for example, Dalcroze, a form of movement education, is presented within the context of whole person education. The book also presents schools where embodied learning is nurtured. Waldorf education is discussed as well as a public school in Toronto where the body is central to holistic education. The book also presents visions of embodied learning. John Miller presents a holistic vision of teacher education and Tobin Hart, who has written extensively in this field, writes about the embodied mind. Embodied learning is an emerging area of inquiry in holistic education and this book presents a variety of perspectives and practices that should be helpful to both scholars and practitioners.

What Is History, Now?

What Is History, Now?
Author: Suzannah Lipscomb
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2021-09-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474622488

'THE history book for now. This is why and how historians do what they do. And why they need to' Dan Snow 'What is History, Now? demonstrates how our constructs of the past are woven into our modern world and culture, and offers us an illuminating handbook to understanding this dynamic and shape-shifting subject. A thought-provoking, insightful and necessary re-examination of the subject' Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five 'The importance of history is becoming more evident every day, and this humane book is an essential navigation tool. Urgent and utterly compelling' Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland 'Important and exciting' Kate Williams, author of Rival Queens Inspired by the influential text WHAT IS HISTORY? authored by Helen Carr's great-grandfather, E.H. Carr, and published on the 60th anniversary of that book, this is a groundbreaking new collection addressing the burning issue of how we interpret history today. What stories are told, and by whom, who should be celebrated, and what rewritten, are questions that have been asked recently not just within the history world, but by all of us. Featuring a diverse mix of writers, both bestselling names and emerging voices, this is the history book we need NOW. WHAT IS HISTORY, NOW? covers topics such as the history of racism and anti-racism, queer history, the history of faith, the history of disability, environmental history, escaping imperial nostalgia, hearing women's voices and 'rewriting' the past. The list of contributors includes: Justin Bengry, Leila K Blackbird, Emily Brand, Gus Casely-Hayford, Sarah Churchwell, Caroline Dodds Pennock, Peter Frankopan, Bettany Hughes, Dan Hicks, Onyeka Nubia, Islam Issa, Maya Jasanoff, Rana Mitter, Charlotte Riley, Miri Rubin, Simon Schama, Alex von Tunzelmann and Jaipreet Virdi.