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Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
by
27/99
Critics' Rating Index
4/99
Readers' Rating Index
86/99
Scholars' Citation Index
66/99
Volume of Reviews
66/99
Volume of Reader Ratings
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About This Book
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND THE ECONOMIST " Life Is Hard is a humane consolation for challenging times. Reading it is like speaking with a thoughtful friend who never tells you to cheer up, but, by offering gentle companionship and a change of perspective, makes you feel better anyway." — The New York Times Book Review There is no cure for the human condition: life is hard. But Kieran Setiya believes philosophy can help. He offers us a map for navigating rough terrain, from personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world. In this profound and personal book, Setiya shows how the tools of philosophy can help us find our way. Drawing on ancient and modern philosophy as well as fiction, history, memoir, film, comedy, social science, and stories from Setiya's own experience, Life Is Hard is a book for this moment—a work of solace and compassion. Warm, accessible, and good-humored, this book is about making the best of a bad lot. It offers guidance for coping with pain and making new friends, for grieving the lost and failing with grace, for confronting injustice and searching for meaning in life. Countering pop psychologists and online influencers who admonish us to "find our bliss" and "live our best lives," Setiya acknowledges that the best is often out of reach. Instead, he asks how we can weather life's adversities, finding hope and living well when life is hard.
Reviews
"Setiya's targets are the infirmities of human life in general, but many of the problems that bedevil us are as individual as we are."
"Readers who persist, though, will find the MIT philosophy professor's engaging musings on the definitions and properties of these emotional, intellectual, and physiological conditions as defined by both ancient and contemporary philosophers and social commentators."
"He does not say that everything happens for a reason (it does not) or that virtue secures a good life (it might not) and certainly not that we can know the cosmos is guided by a loving, providential hand (we can not)."
"This thought-provoking treatise enlightens."
"I didn't find that Life is Hard helped quite as much as I'd hoped, though, with my own existential angst ..."
"Setiya offers neither simple takeaways nor explicit instructions."
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