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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > General
Why Philosophize? is a series of lectures given by Jean-Francois
Lyotard to students at the Sorbonne embarking on their university
studies. The circumstances obliged him to be both clear and
concise: at the same time, his lectures offer a profound and
far-reaching meditation on how essential it is to philosophize in a
world where philosophy often seems irrelevant, outdated, or
inconclusive. Lyotard begins by drawing on Plato, Proust and Lacan
to show that philosophy is a never-ending desire - for wisdom, for
the other . In the second lecture he draws on Heraclitus and Hegel
to explore the close relation between philosophy and history: the
same restlessness, the same longing for a precarious unity, drives
both. In his third lecture, Lyotard examines how philosophy is a
form of utterance, both communicative and indirect. Finally, he
turns to Marx, exploring the extent to which philosophy can be a
transformative action within the world. These wonderfully
accessible lectures by one of the most influential philosophers of
the last 50 years will attract a wide readership, since, as Lyotard
says, How can one not philosophize? They are also an excellent
introduction to Lyotard s mature thought, with its emphasis on the
need for philosophy to bear witness, however obliquely, to a
recalcitrant reality.
This fine edition of Cicero's treatises on the topics of
friendship, old age and life contains the respected translation of
E. S. Shuckburgh. Written in the second century A.D., these
writings encapsulate the wisdom and ability possessed by their
author. Already well into maturity, it is here that the accumulated
experience of a man who had - in an illustrious career of public
service in the Roman Empire - seen and known all manner of events
and people in his bustling society. The attributes important to
friendship are identified by Cicero as he discusses the qualities a
good friend should have. There are several intractable virtues of
friendship, which must be preserved lest the union be damaged. The
second treatise elaborates upon what it is to be old. Writing so as
to echo the much esteemed Cato the Elder, the beauty and profundity
of the words in this essay are significant. The clear and plain yet
succinct and wistfully eloquent words elaborate on aging and the
concerns that arrive with it.
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