When you hear the word “philosophy,” what comes to mind? Doubting everything? Useless exchanges that seem to go nowhere? Theoretical investigations of topics divorced from the business of everyday life? These ideas have been around for ages, but the one that Romans and Greeks found most appealing is also the one that’s long been out of circulation. It’s that philosophy is an art of consolation. In the 6th C. AD, Boethius sat down to write his Consolation of Philosophy after he’d been charged with treason and put in prison. He was hoping that writing the book would bring him peace of mind.

Can philosophy not only stoke our curiosity, can it not only force us to recoil in horror? Can it also help us to reconcile ourselves with the modern world?