Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It: Wisdom of the Great Philosophers on How to Live - Hardcover

Klein, Daniel

 
9780143126799: Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It: Wisdom of the Great Philosophers on How to Live
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0143126792 ISBN 13: 9780143126799
Verlag: Penguin Books, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

A humorous and philosophical trip through life, from the New York Times–bestselling coauthor of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . .
 
Daniel Klein’s fans have fallen in love with the warm, humorous, and thoughtful way he shows how philosophy resonates in everyday life. Readers of his popular books Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . and Travels with Epicurus come for enlightenment and stay for the entertainment.

As a young college student studying philosophy, Klein filled a notebook with short quotes from the world’s greatest thinkers, hoping to find some guidance on how to live the best life he could. Now, from the vantage point of his eighth decade, Klein revisits the wisdom he relished in his youth with this collection of philosophical gems, adding new ones that strike a chord with him at the end of his life. From Epicurus to Emerson and Camus to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr—whose words provided the title of this book—each pithy extract is annotated with Klein’s inimitable charm and insights. In these pages, our favorite jokester–philosopher tackles life’s biggest questions, leaving us chuckling and enlightened. 

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel Klein is the author of the London Times bestseller Travels with Epicurus and, with Thomas Cathcart, the New York Times and international bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . . A graduate of Harvard in philosophy, he lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, Freke Vuijst.

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Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It

Epilogue

Glossary of Terms

Acknowledgments

Prologue

NOT LONG AGO WHILE PACKING AWAY SOME BOOKS, I CAME ACROSS an old notebook labeled "Pithies." Inside were short quotes from philosophers that I had jotted down, one per page, most with barely legible comments scribbled below them.

I had to smile. I had almost forgotten about this little collection of mine. The first entries bore the unmistakable blots and smudges of ink from a fountain pen-notes to myself written some fifty years ago with the pen given to me by my parents as a high school graduation gift. I must have been nineteen or twenty then and had just decided to major in philosophy in college.

The reason for that decision-and for this notebook-was that I had hoped to find some guidance from the great philosophers on how best to live my life. At the time, I didn't have a clue as to what I wanted to do after college; basically all I knew was that I didn't want to be a doctor, lawyer, or businessman, eliminations that put me in a distinct minority of my classmates. I figured studying philosophy would be just the ticket to give me direction.

- - -

About halfway through that notebook, my notations switched to ballpoint pen and my comments on the philosophers' quotes dwindled to just a few words, like "There's got to be a better way" and "Help!" The final entry was from the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: "Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it." Under it I had scribbled, "Now you tell me!" I must have been in my midthirties when I closed the book on "Pithies."

My first reaction when I leafed through the notebook these decades later was to cringe at how naïve I had been. Did I really think I could learn how to live my life from philosophers, many of whom had lived thousands of years ago? What could I have been thinking?

Tips on how to live were few and far between in the philosophy texts I read as a student. Other questions needed to be answered first, such as, "How can we know what is true?" and, "Is there a rational basis for ethical principles?" and, "What is the meaning of 'meaning'?" After all, it made no sense to wonder about the meaning of life, mine or anybody else's, if I didn't know what "meaning" meant.

True. But in the meantime graduation was swiftly approaching, my adult life was about to begin in earnest, and I was desperate for some hints on what to do next. In the following years I dropped in and out of a couple of graduate schools of philosophy and supported myself by writing quiz questions and stunts for TV game shows, routines for stand-up comedians, and mystery novels. I also traveled a lot, usually lugging along a few philosophy books. I was still looking for ideas on how to live the best life.

- - -

Here and there, I did find some truly evocative hints and jotted them down in my increasingly tattered notebook-that is, right up to the point when it struck me that I was on a naïf's mission and I tucked "Pithies" into a box along with some old schoolbooks. That may have been around the same time I heard John Lennon famously declare, "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans."

The question of how to live the best possible life had once been the central question of philosophy. It certainly had been what thinkers like Aristippus, Epicurus, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had foremost on their minds. And in ensuing centuries, it was the fundamental question of a great variety of philosophers, from Humanists to Deists to Existentialists.

But in recent Western philosophy, the how-to-live question has pretty much taken a backseat to the questions of epistemology (How can we know what is real and true?) and logic (What are the necessary principles of reason and rational discourse

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Verlag
Penguin Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0143126792
ISBN 13 
9780143126799
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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