In a series of original and perceptive philosophical essays -- including those on "Birth and Death," "Virtue and Human Flourishing," 'The Need to Sleep," "Sex," "Truth and Reality," "Vanity and Destiny," and "The Fear of Death" -- the author reflects on the nature of morality and its relation to experience, on the individual mind and its place in philosophy, and on the strangeness of life itself. Drawing widely on literature and philosophy -- from Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, George Eliot, Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, D. H. Lawrence, and others -- Living Philosophy has some affinities with the philosophy practised by such figures as Martha Nussbaum, Stanley Cavell, and Peter Winch.
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Editorial Reviews
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Living Philosophy is a remarkable work that fully rises to its title. Philosophy lives in it. Christopher Hamilton brings to his discussion of the great problems of philosophy a penetrating, humane and quite original intelligence. With wisdom, tact and humour he discusses (amongst other things) the fear of death, vanity and destiny, sex, truth and, unusually, our need of sleep. Always the discussion is enriched by reflections on wonderful quotations from philosophers, novelists and poets. In Living Philosophy the reader will find philosophy enlivened by a fine literary sensibility that is in turn disciplined by philosophy. Truly a book to make one think. -- Raimond Gaita, Professor of Moral Philosophy, King's College London and Professor of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University In this hugely stimulating and extremely well-written book, Christopher Hamilton advances a conception of philosophical enquiry which contrasts boldly with the outlook of academic philosophy. In essays on concepts which are of fundamental human importance - birth, destiny, spirit, sexuality, wisdom, death - Hamilton evokes the immense difficulty of grasping human life through philosophical reflection, while raising by several degrees our awareness of the philosophical significance of literature. -- Sebastian Gardner, Department of Philosophy, University College London
About the Author
Christopher Hamilton is Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London, UK.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moral Philosophy Done Right: Stimulating, Accessible,
By Philosopher-Esquire (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Living Philosophy (Paperback)
Too much contemporary analytic philosophy is sterile and dry, not merely bordering on the pointless but veering well into such territory. Christopher Hamilton's short book - really a collection of well-integrated essays - reflects the sophistication of someone who is aware of important developments in 20th century academic philosophy (e.g. Wittgenstein and the linguistic turn) and can let them inform his discussions of morality and the good life in a way that is refreshing, enlightening, and often entertaining. Hamilton looks frequently to literature and so-called 'contintental' philosophy for insights, and this is as it should be. For in saying all the interesting things he has to say on the various topics he takes up, Hamilton is also -- at least implicitly -- helping reveal a new and arguably better way of doing and writing (moral) philosophy.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
THIS IS A BOOK of philosophical essays that may be read independently of each other but which together explore the nature of those values that fall roughly in the area we label with the term 'morality' or 'ethics'. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Oxford University Press, Samuel Johnson, Hannah Arendt, Raimond Gaita, Sämtliche Werke, Cambridge University Press, New York, Birds of America, Peter Singer, Philip Larkin, Roger Scruton, The House of the Dead, Walter Jackson Bate, Basil Blackwell, George Orwell, Kritische Studienausgabe, Martha Nussbaum, David Pole, George Eliot, Hogarth Press, Primo Levi, Robert Musil, Selected Essays, Stefan Zweig, The Varieties of Religious Experience New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
THIS IS A BOOK of philosophical essays that may be read independently of each other but which together explore the nature of those values that fall roughly in the area we label with the term 'morality' or 'ethics'. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Oxford University Press, Samuel Johnson, Hannah Arendt, Raimond Gaita, Sämtliche Werke, Cambridge University Press, New York, Birds of America, Peter Singer, Philip Larkin, Roger Scruton, The House of the Dead, Walter Jackson Bate, Basil Blackwell, George Orwell, Kritische Studienausgabe, Martha Nussbaum, David Pole, George Eliot, Hogarth Press, Primo Levi, Robert Musil, Selected Essays, Stefan Zweig, The Varieties of Religious Experience New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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2
books
cite this book:
- The House of the Dead (Penguin Classics) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky on 7 pages
- Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception by Raimond Gaita on 5 pages
- Collected Poems by Philip Larkin on 5 pages
- Birds Of America by Mary McCarthy on 5 pages
- Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception by Raimond Gaita on 5 pages
See all 100 books this book cites
- Art and Morality (International Library of Philosophy) by Jose Bermudez in Front Matter
- Art and Morality (International Library of Philosophy) by José Luis Bermúdez in Front Matter
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