Nietzsche's The Gay Science (1882/1887) is a deeply personal book, yet also an important work of philosophy. Nietzsche conceives it as a philosophical autobiography, a record of his own self-transformation. In beautifully composed aphorisms he communicates his central experience of overcoming pessimism and recovering the capacity to affirm joyfully the tragedy of life. On the basis of his experiments in living, Nietzsche articulates his most famous philosophical concepts and images: the de...

In this first ever introduction to philosophy as a way of life in the Western tradition, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure take us through the history of the idea from Socrates and Plato, via the medievals, Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Foucault and Hadot. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended to transform their philosophy into manners of living.Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resur...

On Jean Améry provides a comprehensive discussion of one of the most challenging and complex post-Holocaust thinkers, Jean Améry (1912-1978), a Jewish-Austrian-Belgian essayist, journalist and literary author. In the English-speaking world Améry is known for his poignant publication, At the Mind's Limits, a narrative of exile, dispossession, torture, and Auschwitz. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in Améry's writings on victimization and resentment, partly attributable to...

This bookprovides a critical overview of the role of the emotions in politics. Compassion is a politically charged virtue, and yet we know surprisingly little about the uses (and abuses) of compassion in political environments.Covering sociology, political theory and psychology, and with contributions from Martha Nussbaum and Andrew Linklater amongst others, the book gives a succinct overview of the main theories of political compassion and the emotions in politics. It covers key c...