Tag: Self-transformation

• March 3, 2014

  The Nordic man and the Book of Job: From ordinary to higher goods

  The Book of Job made greater sense to me as I was having a philosophical conversation with a Nordic man the other day. About two years ago, this man, who had hitherto been stout and robust with a wife and two young children, learned that he had a heart condition. Never before had he been…
• February 1, 2014

  Philosophical portraiture by Aleksandra Marcella Lauro

  Aleksandra is working on a series on philosophical portraiture. The ultimate aim is to depict a life either as it is in the midst of transforming or after it has been transformed. In this series, she seeks in particular to portray the salient virtues of an excellent human life. In the example below, we see Humility…
• April 10, 2012

  ‘Philosophy is not suited to the classroom’: An essay on ascesis

  Today I begin with a remarkable meditation from Pierre Hadot on philosophical life. I then discuss the supreme value of ascesis: the style of reasoning that is aimed less at informing and more at forming and re-forming the self. This symbol, [ ], denotes my own additions. This symbol, […], denotes my editorial decision to…
• September 6, 2011

  How is teaching possible?

  The Novelty of the Question Richard Rorty says somewhere that great philosophers are great in virtue of their ability to invent novel questions. In so doing, they change the topic of conversation. The contemporary theologian Norman Wirzba asks a great question in his article on Emmanuel Levinas entitled “From Maieutics to Metanoia: Levinas’s Understanding of the…