With the increasing professionalization of philosophy, the question of what constitutes philosophical living has been largely neglected. Now one of the leading philosophers in the pragmatist tradition aims to recover and elaborate the pragmatic idea of philosophy as an art of living and a practical guide to living better. How should the practice of philosophy relate to the project of one's life? To answer this question, Practicing Philosophy examines the idea of the philosophical life as expressed in our century, analysing its essential dimensions and exploring crucial philosophical issues that arise in them: issues that range from epistemology, ethics, and politics, to aesthetics, somatics, and ethnicity. In developing his own conception of the philosophical life, Shusterman critically engages the views of Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Foucault, as well as the current pragmatism of Rorty, Putnam, Goodman, Habermas, and Cavell. Practicing Philosophy thus makes its case for philosophical living while providing a useful survey of the rich variety of contemporary pragmatism.
Industry Reviews
..."a robust and wide-ranging work...."
-"Ethics
..."a wide-ranging invitation to rethink philosophy and philosophical aesthetics..."Practicing Philosophy is about bringing the love of wisdom to bear on everyday life...Academic philosophy can use more of this kind of breadth."
-"The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
"While no hemlock cocktail is being prepared for Shusterman, he is scandalizing his fellow philosophers no less than his ancient counterpart did . . . philosophy at its best is both inspiring, well-thought-out ideas and the exemplification of those ideas in a life well-lived. Richard Shusterman is trying to give us such a philosophy."
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Many years ago, William James and John Dewey warned us about the dangers of the professionalization and narrowing of philosophy as a discipline. Richard Shusterman, working in the best of the pragmatic tradition, has taken this warning to heart. Hestrongly advocates the need to practice one's philosophy, to revive the almost forgotten tradition of living a philosophical life-- a tradition that dates back to Socrates. With verve and perceptive clarity, he ranges over the topics of aesthetics, liberalism, democracy, somatic experience, rap, and Jewish identity. The unifying theme in these diverse explorations is a passionate concern with living a genuinely philosophical life in today's complex and fragmented world..""
-Richard J. Bernstein, New School for Social Research
"Richard Shusterman exemplifies the current renaissance in American pragmatism. His new essays are characteristically astute and wide-ranging, exploring fields as different as democratic theory and hip-hop aesthetics.Above all, Shusterman elaborates a new understanding of the philosophical life, revealing the tacit poetry of the personal in thinkers from Wittgenstein to Rorty."
-James Miller, New School for Social Research
