Life, friends, is hard—and we must say so. It’s harder for some than it is for others. Into each life some rain must fall, but while the lucky dry themselves beside the fire, others are drenched by storms and floods, both literal and figurative. — Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard
Life is Hard — Finding Our Way
How does reading traditional self-help differ from a book on philosophy? What can we learn about the good life from exploring the difficult aspects (loneliness and grief) of life? In a recent conversation on In Search of Wisdom with Kieran Setiya, the author of the new book Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help us Find Our Way, I posed several of these types of questions. The full conversation will release next Wednesday on In Search of Wisdom.
Philosophy as Self-Help
In Life is Hard, Prof. Setiya writes,
Despite its name, “moral philosophy” is about much more than moral obligation. As Plato wrote in the Republic, circa 375 BCE, “The argument concerns no ordinary topic but the way we ought to live.” The subject of moral philosophy is expansive, addressed to everything that matters in life. Philosophers ask what is good for us, what ambitions we should nurse, what virtues we should cultivate or admire. They give guidance and they give arguments; they formulate theories by which to live. There’s an academic side to this: philosophers study abstract questions and dispute each other’s views; they trade in thought experiments that make the familiar strange. But moral philosophy has a practical purpose. Through much of history, there was no clear distinction between philosophical ethics and “self-help.” It was assumed that philosophical reflection on how to live should make our own lives better.
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Thank you for reading/watching; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,