Pressing questions for the philosophical life in a time of crisis

Journal article


Sharpe, Matthew, Kramer, Eli and Chase, Michael. (2021). Pressing questions for the philosophical life in a time of crisis. Eidos: a journal for philosophy of culture. 5(2), pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2021.0013
AuthorsSharpe, Matthew, Kramer, Eli and Chase, Michael
Abstract

2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the publication of Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life (translated by co-author Michael Chase). In that time, what began as the research specialization of just a few scholars has become a growing area of philosophical and metaphilosophical inquiry, bringing together researchers from around the globe. Hadot’s key ideas of spiritual exercises, and the very idea of PWL, have been applied to a host of individual thinkers from across the history of philosophy: from the Hellenistic and Roman-era philosophers of direct concern to Hadot, through renaissance thinkers like Petrarch, Lipsius, Montaigne, Descartes, or Bacon, into nineteenth-century thinkers led by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. In more recent years, more global reflections on the “very idea” of PWL have begun to emerge, as well as dedicated journal editions. In these more recent PWL studies, some of the manifold research questions have begun to be explored, which were opened up by the studies of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot, as well as its reception in Michel Foucault’s later work.

What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?

Keywordsphilosophy; Pierre Hador; metaphilosophy; spiritual exercises; intellectual history
Year01 Jan 2021
JournalEidos: a journal for philosophy of culture
Journal citation5 (2), pp. 1-6
PublisherUniversity of Warsaw
ISSN2544-302X
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2021.0013
Web address (URL)https://eidos.uw.edu.pl/pressing-questions-for-the-philosophical-life-in-a-time-of-crisis/
Open accessOpen access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range1-6
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online30 Oct 2021
Publication process dates
Deposited18 Nov 2024
Additional information

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.

Place of publicationPoland
Permalink -

https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/91109/pressing-questions-for-the-philosophical-life-in-a-time-of-crisis

Download files


Publisher's version
OA_Sharpe_2021_Pressing_questions_for_the_philosophical_life.pdf
License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
File access level: Open

  • 4
    total views
  • 1
    total downloads
  • 0
    views this month
  • 0
    downloads this month
These values are for the period from 19th October 2020, when this repository was created.

Export as

Related outputs

Of Israel, Forst & Voltaire : Deism, Toleration, and Radicalism
Sharpe, Matthew. (2024). Of Israel, Forst & Voltaire : Deism, Toleration, and Radicalism. Critical Horizons. 25(2), pp. 129-152. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2024.2329533
Giving Marx’s critique of law a fair trial : On Igor Shoikhedbrod’s revisiting of Marx’s critique of liberalism and the rule of lawaw a Fair Trial: On Igor Shoikhedbrod’s Revisiting of Marx’s Critique of Liberalism and the Rule of Law
King, Matthew and Sharpe, Matthew. (2024). Giving Marx’s critique of law a fair trial : On Igor Shoikhedbrod’s revisiting of Marx’s critique of liberalism and the rule of lawaw a Fair Trial: On Igor Shoikhedbrod’s Revisiting of Marx’s Critique of Liberalism and the Rule of Law. Critical Horizons. 25(2), pp. 168-181. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2024.2329535
Not Beyond Politics : The Metapolitical Dimensions of Nietzsche’s Anti-Democratism in Beyond Good and Evil
Sharpe, Matthew. (2023). Not Beyond Politics : The Metapolitical Dimensions of Nietzsche’s Anti-Democratism in Beyond Good and Evil. In Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction Essays on Liberalism, Socialism, and Aristocratic Radicalism pp. 149-180 Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13635-1_8
Reclaiming the differences : Three neglected Marxian theories of fascism in Lukács, Marcuse, and Bloch
Sharpe, Matthew and King, Matthew. (2023). Reclaiming the differences : Three neglected Marxian theories of fascism in Lukács, Marcuse, and Bloch. Socialism and Democracy. pp. 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854300.2023.2201803
Spiritual exercises and the question of religion in the work of Pierre Hadot
Sharpe, Matthew. (2023). Spiritual exercises and the question of religion in the work of Pierre Hadot. Religions. 14(8), p. Article 998. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080998
Philosophy as a way of life, spiritual exercises, and palliative care
Sharpe, Matt and Nolan, Robert P.. (2023). Philosophy as a way of life, spiritual exercises, and palliative care. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. 29(7), pp. 1171-1179. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13902
A process-based approach to health-related quality of life as a “way of living”
Nolan, R. P. and Sharpe, M. J.. (2023). A process-based approach to health-related quality of life as a “way of living”. Quality of Life Research. 32(9), pp. 2425-2434. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-023-03385-2
Legado de um Philosophe: O Senece de Diderot : Entre Hypomnemata e Exercicios Espeirituais
Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Legado de um Philosophe: O Senece de Diderot : Entre Hypomnemata e Exercicios Espeirituais. In In Testa, Federico and Fausto, Marta (Ed.). Filosofia Como Modo de Vida (Philosophy as a Way of Life) pp. 301 Ensaios Escolhidos (Chosen Essays).
Politics, Religion, Hope : Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives
Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Politics, Religion, Hope : Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives. Critical Research on Religion. 10(3), pp. 331-332. https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221124548
Humanism and Philosophy as a Way of Life
Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Humanism and Philosophy as a Way of Life. In Philosophy of Culture as Theory, Method, and Way of Life - Contemporary Reflections and Applications pp. 173-192 Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004515796_011
Of Cartesianism and spiritual exercises : Reading Descartes through Hadot, and Hadot through Descartes
Stettler, Matteo J. and Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Of Cartesianism and spiritual exercises : Reading Descartes through Hadot, and Hadot through Descartes. Philosophy Today. 66(3), pp. 471-489. https://doi.org/10.5840/philtoday2022318445
Unifying, comparative, critical and metacritical : Domenico Losurdo’s Nietzsche as aristocratic rebel
Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Unifying, comparative, critical and metacritical : Domenico Losurdo’s Nietzsche as aristocratic rebel. Critical Horizons. 23(2), pp. 284-304. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2022.2100978
Pushing against an open door : Agamben on Hadot and Foucault
Sharpe, Matthew J. and Stettler, Matteo J.. (2022). Pushing against an open door : Agamben on Hadot and Foucault. Classical Receptions Journal. 14(1), pp. 120-139. https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clab007
Wittgenstein’s Unglauben : Jacques Lacan and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Turner, Kirk and Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Wittgenstein’s Unglauben : Jacques Lacan and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. 27(2-3), pp. 201-217. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-022-00281-5
Giving the angel the benefit of law : Natural law and human dignity in Franz Neumann and Ernst Bloch
Sharpe, Matthew. (2022). Giving the angel the benefit of law : Natural law and human dignity in Franz Neumann and Ernst Bloch. Critical Research on Religion. 10(3), pp. 351-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221124559
Philosophy as a way of life : History, dimensions, directions
Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael. (2021). Philosophy as a way of life : History, dimensions, directions Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350102170
Bacon
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). Bacon. In In Gaukroger, Stephen and Hetherington, Stephen (Ed.). Knowledge in Modern Philosophy pp. 7-26 Bloomsbury Academic.
Purloined Letters : Lacan avec Strauss
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). Purloined Letters : Lacan avec Strauss. In Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought Reading Strauss Outside the Lines pp. 29-50 State University of New York Press.
A good person for a crisis? On the wisdom of the stoic sage (in himself & for us)
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). A good person for a crisis? On the wisdom of the stoic sage (in himself & for us). Eidos : A journal for philosophy of culture. 5(1), pp. 32-49. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2021.0003
Solitaire/Solidaire : Camus, contemplation, and the vita mixta
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). Solitaire/Solidaire : Camus, contemplation, and the vita mixta. Telos. 2021(196), pp. 31-43. https://doi.org/10.3817/0921196031
A disturbance of vision on the Capitol : Philosophy and the Far-Right – Towards an interdisciplinary inquiry
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). A disturbance of vision on the Capitol : Philosophy and the Far-Right – Towards an interdisciplinary inquiry. Thesis Eleven. 163(1), pp. 5-28. https://doi.org/10.1177/07255136211012615
On politics, irony, and Plato’s Socrates as Derrida’s pharmakon
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). On politics, irony, and Plato’s Socrates as Derrida’s pharmakon. The Review of Politics. 83(2), pp. 153-173. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670520000984
Golden calf : Deleuze's Nietzsche in the time of Trump
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). Golden calf : Deleuze's Nietzsche in the time of Trump. Thesis Eleven. 163(1), pp. 71-88. https://doi.org/10.1177/07255136211005990
Between too intellectualist and not intellectualist enough : Hadot’s spiritual exercises and Annas’ virtues as skills
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). Between too intellectualist and not intellectualist enough : Hadot’s spiritual exercises and Annas’ virtues as skills. The Journal of Value Inquiry. 55(2), pp. 269-287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09815-z
Pierre Hadot, Albert Camus and the orphic view of nature
Sharpe, Matthew. (2021). Pierre Hadot, Albert Camus and the orphic view of nature. Continental Philosophy Review. 54(1), pp. 17-39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09520-x
Introduction : Situating Hadot Today
Sharpe, Matthew. (2020). Introduction : Situating Hadot Today. In Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice pp. 1-30 Bloomsbury Academic.
Introduction : Camus as Philosopher amongst Philosophers
Kaluza, Maciej, Francev, Peter and Sharpe, Matthew. (2020). Introduction : Camus as Philosopher amongst Philosophers. In Brill's Companion to Camus: Camus among the Philosophers pp. 1-28 Brill.
Pierre Hadot : Stoicism as a Way of Life
Sharpe, Matthew. (2020). Pierre Hadot : Stoicism as a Way of Life. In French and Italian Stoicisms - From Sartre to Agamben pp. 215-233 Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350082069.0019
Drafted into a foreign war? On the very idea of ancient philosophy as a way of life
Sharpe, Matthew. (2020). Drafted into a foreign war? On the very idea of ancient philosophy as a way of life. Rhizomata. 8(2), pp. 183-217. https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2020-0009
In the crosshairs of the fourfold : Critical thoughts on Aleksandr Dugin’s Heidegger
Sharpe, Matthew. (2020). In the crosshairs of the fourfold : Critical thoughts on Aleksandr Dugin’s Heidegger. Critical Horizons. 21(2), pp. 167-187. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2020.1759284
Modern Rebellion, before the Terror : Reading Diderot after Camus
Sharpe, Matthew. (2019). Modern Rebellion, before the Terror : Reading Diderot after Camus. In Brill's Companion to Camus: Camus among the Philosophers pp. 91-112 Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004419247_006
Fantasy
Sharpe, Matthew and Turner, Kirk. (2019). Fantasy. In Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalytic Political Theory pp. 187-198 Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315524771-15
After the fall : Camus on evil
Sharpe, Matthew. (2019). After the fall : Camus on evil. In The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil pp. 163-174 Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315679518
Wherewith to draw us to the left and right : on reading Heidegger in the new millennium
Sharpe, Matthew. (2019). Wherewith to draw us to the left and right : on reading Heidegger in the new millennium. In Confronting Heidegger: a critical dialogue on politics and philosophy pp. 77-109 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Killing the father, Parmenides : On Lacan’s anti-philosophy
Sharpe, Matthew. (2019). Killing the father, Parmenides : On Lacan’s anti-philosophy. Continental Philosophy Review. 52(1), pp. 51-74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-015-9330-8
From Amy Allen to Abbé Raynal : Critical theory, enlightenment, and colonialism
Sharpe, Matthew. (2019). From Amy Allen to Abbé Raynal : Critical theory, enlightenment, and colonialism. Critical Horizons. 20(2), pp. 178-199. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2019.1596220
Home to men’s business and bosoms : Philosophy and rhetoric in Francis Bacon’s Essayes
Sharpe, Matthew. (2019). Home to men’s business and bosoms : Philosophy and rhetoric in Francis Bacon’s Essayes. British Journal for the History of Philosophy. 27(3), pp. 492-512. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2018.1506315
Into the heart of darkness or : Alt-stoicism? actually, no…
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). Into the heart of darkness or : Alt-stoicism? actually, no…. Eidos: a journal for philosophy of culture. 4(6), pp. 106-113. https://doi.org/10.26319/6921
The demise of grand narratives? Postmodernism, power-knowledge, and applied epistemology
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). The demise of grand narratives? Postmodernism, power-knowledge, and applied epistemology. In Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology pp. 318-331 Routledge.
Camus and Forgiveness : After the Fall
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). Camus and Forgiveness : After the Fall. In Phenomenology and Forgiveness pp. 149-164 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Ilsetraut Hadot’s Seneca : Spiritual Direction and the Transformation of the Other
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). Ilsetraut Hadot’s Seneca : Spiritual Direction and the Transformation of the Other. In Ethics and Self-Cultivation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives pp. 104-123 Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315102269
Rhetorical action in Rektoratsrede : Calling Heidegger’s Gefolgschaft
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). Rhetorical action in Rektoratsrede : Calling Heidegger’s Gefolgschaft. Philosophy and Rhetoric. 51(2), pp. 176-201. https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.51.2.0176
Heidegger in 2018 : Editor-translator’s introduction
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). Heidegger in 2018 : Editor-translator’s introduction. Critical Horizons. 19(4), pp. 271-273. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2018.1520503
On reading Heidegger—After the ‘Heidegger Case’?
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). On reading Heidegger—After the ‘Heidegger Case’? Critical Horizons. 19(4), pp. 334-360. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2018.1520514
Towards a phenomenology of sagesse : Uncovering the unique philosophical problematic of Pierre Hadot
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). Towards a phenomenology of sagesse : Uncovering the unique philosophical problematic of Pierre Hadot. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities. 23(2), pp. 125-138. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1451475
The topics transformed : Rethinking Francis Bacon’s prerogative instances
Sharpe, Matthew. (2018). The topics transformed : Rethinking Francis Bacon’s prerogative instances. Journal of the History of Philosophy. 56(3), pp. 429-454. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2018.0046
Bibliopolitics : The history of notation and the birth of the citational academic subject
Sharpe, Matthew and Turner, Kirk. (2018). Bibliopolitics : The history of notation and the birth of the citational academic subject. Foucault Studies. 25, pp. 146-174. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v25i2.5578
Fearless? Peter Weir, the sage, and the fragility of goodness
Sharpe, Matthew. (2017). Fearless? Peter Weir, the sage, and the fragility of goodness. Philosophy and Literature. 41(1), pp. 136-157. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2017.0009