If this life is all there is,what should we do with it Join Swedish philosopher Martin Hgglund on an original inquiry into the deepest questions of existence,beginning with a radical declaration:'What I do and what I love can matter to me only because I understand myself as mortal.'Through revelatory engagements with some of history's greatest philosophers,including Aristotle,St Augustine,Nietzsche,Hegel and Marx,Hgglund attacks our two great deceivers,religion and capitalism. Only by stripping away their subtle illusions can we discover the true value of our earthly freedom.Existence is revealed as a collective project: everything is at stake in what we do together,and no victory can survive us.'The light of bliss - even when it floods your life - is always attended by the shadow of loss.'By illuminating this truth,This Life forges an existential philosophy fit for a darkening century.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Profile Books LtdISBN: 9781788163019Number of pages: 464Weight: 383 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 27 mmEdition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
Beautifully liberating...Hgglund's fundamental secular cry seems right:since time is all we have,we must measure its preciousness in units offreedom. Nothing else will do. Once this glorious idea has taken hold,it is very hard to dislodge.A splendid primer in the importance of authentic freedom.Lucidlywritten,and at times beautifully so,it is unmistakably a work ofphilosophy... (Hgglund) wants to effect arevolutionary change in our understanding of value,in our economies andin our lives.Martin Hgglund shows with real originality why the moral concern thatunderlies religious faith has always been a hope for the perpetuation oflife on earth. Stringent,lucid,and urgent in its appeal for apolitics equal to the prospect of climate disaster,This Life is both an argument and a summons.This is a rare piece of work,the product of great intellectualstrength and moral fortitude. The writing shows extraordinary range andpossesses an honesty and fervor which is entirely without cynicism... Hgglund is a genuine moralistfor our times,possessed of an undaunted resoluteness and a fiercecommitment to intellectual probity. Maybe he's the philosophicalanalogue to Karl Ove Knausgaard.A bold contemporary take on existentialism... Earnest and precise... huge intellectual range... beautifully clear. This Life requires no philosophical training or lexicon to follow it,only an interest in the meaning of this life...I found Hgglund's cherishing of mortal life a cheering corrective to the sometimes joyless scientificity of the new atheism....Hgglund is surely right that it is our mortality,our miraculous existence as carbon-based matter turned all too briefly into conscious beings who can love and be loved,that makes us priceless to ourselves and to each other.Hgglund's This Life is a highly readable,accessible - yet profound - examination of what kind of society might enable life at its most fulfilling. Whilst realising our interdependence,we have to be responsible for our own fragile lives. The theses may be heavy,but the discussions and analyses,however complex,are written with a light touch and beguiling clarity which is both wholly absorbing and deeply relevant. The reader is complicit,a partner. It is a book to read slowly,and this reviewer is about to start reading it all over again.
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