By Massimo Pigliucci, Skye Cleary, Daniel Kaufman
Fifteen philosophies for living well
Subject
Themes
Everyone already possesses a philosophy of life, whether consciously chosen or absorbed through culture, upbringing, and religion. The crucial question is whether that philosophy holds up under scrutiny. Socrates insisted that an unexamined life is not worth living, and the editors of this collection took that challenge personally. Skye Cleary was a self-described "capitalist worker bee" until Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism shattered her assumptions. Massimo Pigliucci spent decades as a scientist before discovering Stoicism through social media and finding it transformative. Together with Daniel Kaufman, they assembled fifteen practitioners to describe how the world looks through their chosen philosophical lens.
Everyone already possesses a philosophy of life, whether consciously chosen or absorbed through culture, upbringing, and religion. The crucial question is whether that philosophy holds up under scrutiny. Socrates insisted that an unexamined life is not worth living, and the editors of this…
The publication of How to Live a Good Life in 2020 arrives at a moment when the market for popular philosophy and self-help has reached extraordinary saturation. Books promising to distil ancient wisdom into actionable life advice proliferate, from Ryan Holiday's Stoicism-for-entrepreneurs to Mark…
Socrates declared that an unexamined life is not worth living. This claim runs through all fifteen philosophies like a thread connecting traditions separated by thousands of years and vast cultural distances. Each contributor arrived at their philosophy not through passive inheritance but through…
One of the most striking patterns across all fifteen philosophies is the near-universal rejection of rigid moral codes in favour of contextual ethical judgement. Aristotle's doctrine of the mean deliberately provides no specific rules; what counts as moderate depends entirely on context. The Stoics…
A fundamental fault line runs through all fifteen philosophies: where does the individual end and the community begin? William James championed rugged individualism, insisting the world was "up to us" and that single individuals could effect genuine cultural change. His friend Charles Peirce…
The boundary between philosophy and religion is treated throughout as deliberately fuzzy. So long as a system of thought offers both a metaphysics (an account of how the world works) and an ethics (principles for interacting with others), it qualifies as a philosophy of life. Traditions with…
Perhaps the most radical claim running through all fifteen traditions is that philosophy is not primarily an intellectual exercise but a daily practice. Every contributor writes as an active practitioner rather than a detached analyst, and their accounts consistently emphasise what they do, not…
Owen Flanagan recounts a pivotal encounter in Dharamsala, India, in March 2000, when he met the fourteenth Dalai Lama for discussions on destructive emotions. Tibetan Buddhists, he discovers, consider anger categorically bad, always "unwholesome," a stance that strikes Western sensibilities as…
Robin Wang opens by describing a world of uncertainty, conflict, inequality, and environmental crisis, then reveals she could be describing either the present day or China's Warring States period over two thousand years ago. Daoism emerged from that ancient turmoil, and its core concern remains how…
Massimo Pigliucci stumbled upon Stoicism through a tweet inviting people to celebrate "Stoic Week." He downloaded the handbook, spent a week reading Stoic texts, writing a philosophical diary, and practising mild self-denial such as fasting and going out underdressed. Several years later, he remains…
Deepak Sarma writes from within the Madhva tradition of Vedanta, founded by the thirteenth-century theologian Madhvacharya in Karnataka, India. Hinduism's diversity makes unified description difficult, but certain concepts pervade nearly all its schools: karma, samsara, and moksha. Karma links…
Alister McGrath came to Christianity through an intellectual detour through various forms of atheism. As a teenager, he was a "metaphysically suspicious" natural scientist who saw no grounds for believing life had inherent meaning. At Oxford, growing doubts about this stance led him to embrace…
Anne Klaeysen, raised Irish-Catholic in Palmyra, New York, found her way to Ethical Culture through the experience of raising children in a mixed marriage. She and her Jewish husband, having both abandoned their inherited faiths, discovered the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, where they…
American pragmatism was born from crisis. William James and Charles Peirce, friends and co-founders of the tradition, both wrestled with suicidal impulses, and their philosophical breakthroughs emerged directly from those struggles. James suffered depression from adolescence, tormented by the fear…
Secular humanism holds that people can live meaningful, ethical lives without religion. Many already agree with its principles without realising they are secular humanists. The philosophy combines the conviction that humanity must take responsibility for its own future with the political principle…
By Massimo Pigliucci, Skye Cleary, Daniel Kaufman
Subject
Themes
Everyone already possesses a philosophy of life, whether consciously chosen or absorbed through culture, upbringing, and religion. The crucial question is whether that philosophy holds up under scrutiny. Socrates insisted that an unexamined life is not worth living, and the editors of this collection took that challenge personally. Skye Cleary was a self-described "capitalist worker bee" until Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism shattered her assumptions. Massimo Pigliucci spent decades as a scientist before discovering Stoicism through social media and finding it transformative. Together with Daniel Kaufman, they assembled fifteen practitioners to describe how the world looks through their chosen philosophical lens.