How to Play Philosophy

Michael Picard

doi:10.5771/9780761873075

Summary

Philosophy can transform your life. But the only philosophy that can save you is your own. Yet how do you find your own in an age of misinformation and unbridled spin, when truth is unfashionable and hype hyper-attractive. Where is the air needed to breathe the honest spirit of inquiry?

How to Play Philosophy is a breezy array of lyrical, creative essays that explore timeless and timely ideas about who we are, how we live and what we think. MIT-trained philosopher Michael Picard gives airing to numerous philosophers from conflicting traditions and builds an intellectual background to enable readers to draw their own conclusions.

Written in a spirit of free and playful inquiry, the essays were composed originally to support public participatory philosophy, or Café Philosophy, which the author has facilitated for decades. Subjects include Play it With Feeling (Desire, Stress, Anger); Games We Play (Intimacy, Loyalty, Betrayal) and Playing Fair (Values, Good, Integrity), alongside epistemological topics including Truth (Knowledge, Certainty, Objectivity) and the perennial metaphysical quandaries (Human Nature, The Sacred, God).

Written for everyone interested in exploring age-old subjects in an age of disposable content, How to Play Philosophy offers playful provocations with the aim of enabling independent thinking and deeper public conversations.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7618-7306-8
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7618-7307-5
Publisher: Hamilton Books, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 236
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Figures No access
  2. Table No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. Come into Play No access
2. Café Philosophy as Playground: On the Origin of These Essays No access
3. Philosophy at Play: Ordinary Language as Holiday No access
4. Philosophy Sports: A New Way to Play Café Philosophy No access
5. Notes No access
1. Mythology No access
2. Dreams No access
3. Fate No access
4. Chaos No access
5. The Sublime No access
6. Hope No access
7. Synchronicity No access
8. Infinity No access
9. Notes No access
1. Soul No access
2. Self No access
3. Ego No access
4. Personality No access
5. Identity No access
6. Selflessness No access
7. Spirit No access
8. Play No access
9. Notes No access
1. Desire No access
2. Interest No access
3. Stress No access
4. Passion No access
5. Guilt No access
6. Denial No access
7. Anger No access
8. Envy No access
9. Notes No access
1. Surrender No access
2. Loneliness No access
3. Intimacy No access
4. Loyalty No access
5. Betrayal No access
6. Faithfulness No access
7. Soul Mates No access
8. Notes No access
1. Values No access
2. 1. All Value Spheres No access
  2. A Good Job? No access
  3. Sin and Sinner No access
  4. Good, Right, Virtue: Arch-Concepts in the Moral Value Sphere No access
  5. Not What Is Desired, but What Is Desirable No access
  6. What Is It to Be a Duck? No access
  7. The Good Life No access
  8. To End: Ethical Means, and What the Ethical Means No access
3. *** No access
4. Integrity No access
5. Beauty No access
6. Notes No access
1. Knowledge No access
2. Certainty No access
3. Objectivity No access
4. Meaning No access
5. Notes No access
1. Metaphysics No access
2. Change No access
3. Energy No access
4. *** No access
5. Wholeness No access
6. Human Nature No access
7. Enlightenment No access
8. Notes No access
1. God No access
2. Religion No access
3. Faith No access
4. The Sacred No access
5. Worship No access
6. 1. Truth No access
  2. Love No access
  3. And Everything No access
7. Immortality No access
8. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 209 - 218
Discography No access Pages 219 - 220
Index No access Pages 221 - 234
About the Author No access Pages 235 - 236