E-books on Offer

The following six e-books were written in the spirit of generosity and in the way of friendship. These include The Good Life and Sustaining Life (2014), Awakening to Philosophical Life (2014), Cultivating Discipline Lightly (2013), Manners and Mores (2013), A Guidebook for Philosophical Life (2012), and The Art of Inquiry (2012). Each leaves my hands as gently as the words that first came to my fingers; each is offered to those who bend their ears to hear.

E-book Collection: $5 or $10

If you’d like to receive an e-book, simply offer $5 via PayPal. If you’d like to receive two e-books, offer $10 via PayPal. If you’d like to receive more than two e-books, you can also offer $10.

To receive your e-books, simply click on the PayPal Gift button on the right and follow the PayPal instructions. In the message field, indicate which e-books you would like to receive. Write “All” if you would like all of them. Expect to receive your copies via email the same or the following day.

The Good Life and Sustaining Life

AN INQUIRY INTO OUR GREAT VEXATION

September 2014 | e-book | 73 pages

The question of the good life, I argue, must come before that of sustaining life. From this starting point, I systematically inquire into (1) which conceptions of the good life are available to us in modernity, (2) what ways one can make a living during ‘unsettled time,’ and (3) how one can make a living in such a way that accords with leading a flourishing life.

There may be no greater vexation in our time than the question of how to make a living in a way that accords with leading a good life. Yet if nearly every thinking person has faced this vexation at one time or another and doubtless throughout most of his adult life, virtually no one has ventured to think it through in a well-considered, systematic fashion.

Table of Contents.  Preface: Our Great Vexation  Day 1. The Question of the Good Life  Day 2. The Question of Sustaining Life  Day 3. The Question of Consonance  Appendix. Ways of Life in Modernity: A Chart

Awakening to Philosophical Life

ESSAYS PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL

March 2014 | e-book | 103 pages

The 46 personal essays selected for inclusion in this beautiful volume date back to January of 2011 and were written with no other intention apart from the desire to become a more excellent human being.  They show the reader how-by paying close attention to examples-he can awaken to philosophical life.

The ‘basic questions of living’ occur to me but transcend my existence; they emerge in my time but go beyond my years; they shape my moral character but the nature of my character is poured from a general cast of mind. They enliven me-this is true-yet only by dint of coursing through my being; and while their beginning is contingent, their reason for being is necessary.

Table of Contents  1. Growing Up More  2. Old Laozi in New York City  3. Nature’s Silent Course  4. When I was With the Night  5. Manners, Mores, and Glorious Tongues  6. A Philosopher’s Parochial School  7. And is This not Mysterium Fascinans?  8. Horribly Bellowing Women, Manly Bowing Shoulders  9. Living Simply in Appalachia

Cultivating Discipline Lightly

A GUIDEBOOK FOR PHILOSOPHICAL FRIENDS

August 2013 | e-book | 107 pages

In response to our unsettled time, this humble guidebook provides the one so attuned with a way to build a small-scale organization consisting of guides and pupils. This beautiful trellis, delicate yet sturdy, light yet hardy, is held together by the pupil’s ongoing practice of lighthearted discipline.

Who is to lead? The guide. Then who is to follow? The pupil. By what authority? By that of inquiry, the pupil letting himself be led by the guide who does not know yet has some idea how to find out.

Table of Contents  Rip Van Winkle: A Parable  1. Raising and Lowering Our Eyes  2. Acknowledging Our Unsettled Time  3. Trellis-Making  4. Inquiring  5. Cultivating Lightheartedness  Of Ladders: An Imaginary Dialogue  Appendix. Getting the Hang of Being Surprised

Manners and Mores

A TUTORIAL FOR FREELANCERS TIRED OF HUSTLING AND PRONE TO APOLOGIZING

August 2013 | e-book | 35 pages

‘The Freelancer’s Dilemma,’ as I call it, spells out the unpalatable choice between hustling to make ends meet and apologizing for running over one’s colleagues. Becoming well-mannered, I propose, is the way one withdraws from this dilemma in order to live more politely, civilly, and humanely. Each chapter consists of examples in these gentle, yet nearly forgotten, social arts.

Either he hustles, or else he apologizes. If he hustles, he grows to detest himself. But if he apologizes, he grows to detest himself. So, he grows to detest himself.

Table of Contents  Preface  1. The Freelancer’s Dilemma  2. A Few Choice Words About Style  3. A Word or Two of Caution About the Ills of Talkativeness  4. Unregrettable Words About the Art of Invitations  5. Lovely Notes of Introduction  6. Pindarian Notes of Praise  7. Giving Beautiful Thanks 8. In Praise of the Open-Ended Conversation  9. On Hosting and Being Hosted  10. On Saying Your Graceful Goodbyes  Supplement. Raising Funds in the Context of a Gift Economy

A Guidebook for Philosophical Life

THE SEARCH FOR RADIANT LIVING

May 2012 | e-book | 113 pages

This loving book, A Guidebook for Philosophical Life, is written for those with ears to hear. It seeks to provide a path to-as well as a radiant vision of-a good and beautiful life.

The philosophical life is, above all, the search for the most excellent way of being. And if ‘the most excellent way of being’ can be glossed, in a word, as ‘radiance,’ then it follows that philosophy just is the search for radiance.

Table of Contents  1. Genre  2. If Life is Brought into Question  3. Examined Life  4. Images of Philosophy  5. A Community of Inquirers  6. A Life of the Virtues  7. Living Simply  8. Ascesis  9. Eros  10. Gift Economy  11. Radiance  Appendix: Transition to Philosophical Life

CHAPTER 1. GENRE here.

The Art of Inquiry

COMING TO UNIMAGINABLE CLARITY

August 2012 | e-book | 33 pages

The reader of this guide is the individual seeking to gain clarity about the shape of his life or the member of an organization who wishes to learn how he fits into the organization. Its chief aim is to acquaint him with how to inquire into the things that matter most.

An inquiry is a stroll through a garden, a game of philosophical improv, a mysterious adventure whose clues lead on to the final unraveling…

Table of Contents  1. Inquiry Illuminated  Interlude 1: Meno’s Paradox of Inquiry  2. Confusion  Interlude 2: Living Meanwhile – A Time of the Virtues  3. Clarity

CHAPTER 1. INQUIRY ILLUMINATED here.