Synopses & Reviews
Sometimes it seems like you need a PhD just to open a book of philosophy. We leave philosophical matters to the philosophers in the same way that we leave science to scientists. Scott Samuelson thinks this is tragic, for our lives as well as for philosophy. In
The Deepest Human Life he takes philosophy back from the specialists and restores it to its proper place at the center of our humanity, rediscovering it as our most profound effort toward understanding, as a way of life that anyone can live. Exploring the works of some of historys most important thinkers in the context of the everyday struggles of his students, he guides us through the most vexing quandaries of our existenceand shows just how enriching the examined life can be.
Samuelson begins at the beginning: with Socrates, working his most famous assertionthat wisdom is knowing that one knows nothinginto a method, a way of approaching our greatest mysteries. From there he springboards into a rich history of philosophy and the ways its journey is encoded in our own quests for meaning. He ruminates on Epicurus against the sonic backdrop of crickets and restaurant goers in Iowa City. He follows the Stoics into the cell where James Stockdale spent seven years as a prisoner of war. He spins with al-Ghazali first in doubt, then in the ecstasy of the divine. And he gets the philosophy education of his life when one of his students, who authorized a risky surgery for her son that inadvertently led to his death, asks with tears in her eyes if Kant was right, if it really is the motive that matters and not the consequences. Through heartbreaking stories, humanizing biographies, accessible theory, and evocative interludes like On Wine and Bicycles” or On Zombies and Superheroes ,” he invests philosophy with the personal and vice versa. The result is a book that is at once a primer and a reassurancethat the most important questions endure, coming to life in each of us.
Review
“Scott Samuelson is a philosopher with a knack for storytelling. As a result, The Deepest Human Life is a book that humanizes philosophy and that relates grand philosophical themes to the lives of ordinary people. Not only that, but Samuelson writes in a manner that ordinary people—meaning those without a philosophical background—will find inviting. Readers will come away with a better understanding of some of philosophys fundamental concepts and in many cases will also have taken important first steps toward conducting an examination of their own lives.”
Review
“The Deepest Human Life is a splendid book for students, writers, philosophers, and anyone interested in exploring the human condition. Samuelson wears his considerable learning lightly, addressing the enduring questions—What is philosophy? What is happiness? What is the nature of good and evil?—in an engaging and accessible manner, reminding readers that the quest for meaning is indeed a matter of life and death. What a marvelous professor he must be. And what good luck to have his wisdom here on the page.”
Review
“The Deepest Human Life is charming and upbeat, but its also very poignant in places. Samuelson weaves his personal story of teaching at a community college into the philosophical adventure and shows how philosophy is an approach to life—a practice of self-knowing and self-forgetting—rather than a professional career. The result is a unique introduction to philosophy, composed with a rare voice of humane literary sophistication.”
Review
“As a freshman in college, Samuelson fought with classmates over whether philosophy was essential for a meaningful life. Fortunately, hes still fighting. Defying the widespread perception of philosophy as an academic specialty, Samuelson urges readers to join him in a humanizing intellectual adventure, one that begins with Socrates frank profession of ignorance. . . . But perhaps no one teaches more than Samuelsons own diverse college students—a wine-loving bicyclist, a sleep-deprived housewife, a monk-faced factory worker. These seemingly ordinary people underscore the most important lesson of all: philosophy matters for everyone.”
Review
“The Deepest Human Life offers us the kinds of tools we have always needed to face Pascals implicit challenge to face ourselves, difficult though the task may be.”
Review
“Many professors claim to learn from their students while inwardly denying the claim. But the enchanting Samuelson takes us along to class with him in these lively pages. Unlike other members of the philosophers guild, he seldom serves up an abstraction without an accompanying concrete example culled from in-class comments and student papers. . . . This compelling story of philosophy nudges the reader toward the conviction that a sense of awe, which Samuelson lionizes and invites, will transform more than our ways of thinking.”
Review
“Samuelson has given us a personal perspective on
doing philosophy. While a close reading of
The Deepest Human Life will let you come away with a broad contextual understanding of the development of western thought, the book is really about inspiring the reader to think—and act, and
live—more philosophically.”
Review
“Todd May is something of a legend, known for his lively, conversational style of discourse, and this book—on no less than the meaning of life—showcases all of his best features. It is engaging and clear, with vivid examples from literature and May’s own life. It addresses a topic of very broad interest, yet it does so in a philosophically sophisticated way. Despite Pierre Hadot’s claim that all ancient philosophy was about the meaning of life, there is surprisingly little engagement of the question by contemporary philosophers. May’s book fills this void marvelously.”
Review
“For a survey of philosophical thought, Samuelson’s quirky, abundantly informed new book,
The Deepest Human Life, is a surprisingly snappy read. A cynical elevator pitch might call it “philosophy for dummies,” but it’s not for dummies any more than it’s for overly serious chin-massagers. The book would be useful as either an introduction or a brush-up, and enjoyably personable in either instance.”
Review
“In A Significant Life, May has produced a tour de force. It is a thoughtful, subtle, beautifully written discussion of what it takes to live a meaningful life. A careful study of this book will tell you what it takes to make life worth living. It is refreshing to encounter someone worrying about such a big question in the small-minded times we live in, and an absolute joy to discover that he may actually have provided an answer.”
Review
“In this eloquent and inspiring book, May argues that meaning in life is not given to us by God or the universe; nor is it, as the existentialists claimed, something we invent for ourselves. It is found instead in living in accordance with what he calls ‘narrative values,’ which inform and structure our lives as wholes. May’s arguments are often illustrated with examples drawn from literature and his writing is frequently lyrical, though always accessible. The book does not claim to reveal the meaning of life. May is a seeker rather than a proselytizer. Indeed, it is in part because he is not content with simplistic certainties that he is able to offer such wise guidance in our efforts to understand how and why our lives matter.”
Review
“This is an engaging, beautifully written book that grabs the reader from the first page—something one cannot often say about a philosophy book. More important, May has given us a wise, humane reflection on one of the central questions of philosophy—what makes for a meaningful life? While accessible to a broad audience, A Significant Life also makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature. I highly recommend it.”
Review
“A basic but thoughtful introduction to philosophy. Samuelson treats philosophy not merely as a topic or academic subject, but as an approach to life. As a teacher and as a person, Samuelson encourages his students—who, as community college students in a small, Midwestern city, come from all walks of life—and his readers to do the same. . . . Samuelson works through a wide spectrum of key issues and thinkers—both classical and contemporary—in a fair, efficient, sympathetic, and enjoyable manner. His writing style is both engaging and approachable. The “interludes” between the book’s four parts encourage readers to reflect on what appear to be commonplaces in human experience (laughter and tears, wine and bicycles, campfires and the sun); yet, these experiences can and should give rise to wonder, the beginning of philosophy. A notable feature of the book is the wide range of sources from which Samuelson draws, from philosophers and mystics to poetry and modern mythologies.”
Review
“May’s book is a thoughtful, widely accessible, and comprehensive account of meaning in life. . . . As someone well acquainted with work on life’s meaning composed by professional philosophers, I have profited from reading May’s book, especially his discussion of what can confer (substantial) meaning on a person’s life. I especially recommend his work in virtue of it being a ‘good read’, avoiding technicalities and reflecting on everyday examples with insight. It would be ideal to assign for an upper-level undergraduate course or to share as a gift with reflective friends and family outside the academy.”
Synopsis
Winner of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities.
Sometimes it seems like you need a PhD just to open a book of philosophy. We leave philosophical matters to the philosophers in the same way that we leave science to scientists. Scott Samuelson thinks this is tragic, for our lives as well as for philosophy. In The Deepest Human Life he takes philosophy back from the specialists and restores it to its proper place at the center of our humanity, rediscovering it as our most profound effort toward understanding, as a way of life that anyone can live. Exploring the works of some of history s most important thinkers in the context of the everyday struggles of his students, he guides us through the most vexing quandaries of our existence and shows just how enriching the examined life can be.
Samuelson begins at the beginning: with Socrates, working his most famous assertion that wisdom is knowing that one knows nothing into a method, a way of approaching our greatest mysteries. From there he springboards into a rich history of philosophy and the ways its journey is encoded in our own quests for meaning. He ruminates on Epicurus against the sonic backdrop of crickets and restaurant goers in Iowa City. He follows the Stoics into the cell where James Stockdale spent seven years as a prisoner of war. He spins with al-Ghazali first in doubt, then in the ecstasy of the divine. And he gets the philosophy education of his life when one of his students, who authorized a risky surgery for her son that inadvertently led to his death, asks with tears in her eyes if Kant was right, if it really is the motive that matters and not the consequences. Through heartbreaking stories, humanizing biographies, accessible theory, and evocative interludes like On Wine and Bicycles or On ZombiesandSuperheroes, he invests philosophy with the personal and vice versa. The result is a book that is at once a primer and a reassurance that the most important questions endure, coming to life in each of us.
"
Synopsis
As the title of Scott Samuelson’s manuscript suggests, his project introduces philosophy not as a “special, insular form of thought”—as Stanley Fish recently described philosophy—but rather as the very real and widespread search for meaning. Samuelson frames his “personal” presentation of philosophy with his own story of how he came to a community college as a classically-trained philosopher and rediscovered the true nature and power of philosophy among soldiers and chiropractors, preschool music teachers and aspiring undertakers, ex-cons and cancer patients—real people who surprised him with their need and flair for philosophy. A serious thematic and historical introduction to philosophy as way of life, the book is organized around four questions: What is philosophy? What is happiness? Is knowledge of God possible? And what is the nature of good and evil? Samuelson connects and compares some of the world’s great philosophers to his students, teachers, and himself, revealing that there is a pattern to the search for wisdom, even though it often leads to fascinatingly different places. This is a serious but accessible introduction to philosophy that empowers its readers as philosophers.
Synopsis
Philosopher Todd Mays latest book helps readers to find meaning in their lives, especially those readers who, like Camus, do not look to God. As Camus says of daily life, But then one day the why arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.” To move beyond that weariness tinged with amazement, we must look, May argues, toward a realm of values that inheres in our practices but that we rarely reflect on systematically: narrative values. Narrative values offer thematic meaning and a sense of worth to the trajectory of our lives.
The book proceeds in five stages. In the first chapter, May raises the question of meaningfulness, and then rejects the answers he thinks are too easyGod and the universe. The second chapter considers and rejects the possibility that happiness is good enough. For a life to be meaningful in the sense many of us seek, it cannot only feel good to us: it must also meet certain, more objective criteria of meaningfulness. In the third chapter, the heart of the book, May proposes narrative values as offering those criteria or standards of meaning, values such as steadfastness, adventurousness, or gracefulness. In chapter four, May contrasts narrative values with both moral values and aesthetic ones, and in chapter five May defends the idea that we can have standards or criteria of meaning that are objectivenot simply a matter of personal opinioneven in the absence of God or some foundation upon which to rest our beliefs. May reflects on what it is to have a meaningful life, and how much or how little comfort we can take from the meaning our lives might express. Narrative values do not offer us an assurance that our lives have a cosmic significance, and they do not redeem all humankind. Instead, they give us a framework for reflecting on ourselves that allow us to make sense of and give value to the particular bent of the arc of our lives.
Synopsis
What makes for a good life, or a beautiful one, or, perhaps most important, a meaningful one? Throughout history most of us have looked to our faith, our relationships, or our deeds for the answer. But in A Significant Life, philosopher Todd May offers an exhilarating new way of thinking about these questions, one deeply attuned to life as it actually is: a work in progress, a journey—and often a narrative. Offering moving accounts of his own life and memories alongside rich engagements with philosophers from Aristotle to Heidegger, he shows us where to find the significance of our lives: in the way we live them.
May starts by looking at the fundamental fact that life unfolds over time, and as it does so, it begins to develop certain qualities, certain themes. Our lives can be marked by intensity, curiosity, perseverance, or many other qualities that become guiding narrative values. These values lend meanings to our lives that are distinct from—but also interact with—the universal values we are taught to cultivate, such as goodness or happiness. Offering a fascinating examination of a broad range of figures—from music icon Jimi Hendrix to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, from cyclist Lance Armstrong to The Portrait of a Lady’s Ralph Touchett to Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler—May shows that narrative values offer a rich variety of criteria by which to assess a life, specific to each of us and yet widely available. They offer us a way of reading ourselves, who we are, and who we might like to be.
Clearly and eloquently written, A Significant Life is a recognition and a comfort, a celebration of the deeply human narrative impulse by which we make—even if we don’t realize it—meaning for ourselves. It offers a refreshing way to think of an age-old question, of quite simply, what makes a life worth living.
About the Author
Todd May is Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities at Clemson University. He is the author of many books, including Friendship in an Age of Economics, Contemporary Movements and the Thought of Jacques Rancière, and Death.
Table of Contents
Prelude on Light Pollution and the Stars
Part 1 What Is Philosophy?
1 Portrait of You as Odysseus
2 Portrait of Philosophy as Socrates
Interlude on Laughter and Tears
Part 2 What Is Happiness?
3 The Exquisite Materialism of Epicurus
4 The Mysterious Freedom of the Stoic
Interlude on Wine and Bicycles
Part 3 Is Knowledge of God Possible?
5 The Ecstasy without a Name
6 In Nightmares Begins Rationality
7 The Terrifying Distance of the Stars
Interlude on Campfires and the Sun
Part 4 What Is the Nature of Good and Evil?
8 The Moral Worth of a Teardrop
9 The Beast That Is and Is Not
Interlude on Superheroes and Zombies
Conclusion: The Most Beautiful Thing in the World
Acknowledgments
Recommended Further Reading
Notes
Index