Life Is Hard

August 15, 2022
MIT philosophy professor Setiya (Midlife) proffers advice for navigating suffering in this insightful guide. “What we need in our affliction is acknowledgment,” Setiya contends, exploring how such philosophers as Plato, Simone Weil, and Ludwig Wittgenstein have contemplated adversity. Probing Aristotle’s writings on the fundamental need for friends, Setiya suggests that friendship rests on the “reciprocal recognition of human dignity” and that readers might fight loneliness by volunteering or showing respect and curiosity toward others. Setiya critiques the contention of philosophers Daniel Dennett and Charles Taylor that humans must narrativize their lives to make sense of them and warns that “when you define your life by way of a single enterprise... its outcome will come to define you.” Tackling injustice, the author criticizes Theodor Adorno’s aversion to political action and urges readers to fight despair by accepting that one is likely only able to take small steps to ameliorate societal wrongs: “A protest may not change the world, but it adds its fraction to the odds of change.” The critical engagement with historical philosophers gives the impression of a lively debate, and Setiya excels at discerning which ideas speak to modern maladies and which don’t hold up. This thought-provoking treatise enlightens.

October 1, 2022

Setiya (philosophy, MIT; Midlife: A Philosophical Guide) makes the case that while life has challenging moments, philosophical ideas can help overcome these setbacks. By understanding pain, loss, grief, failure, and more, people can see their purpose, which will help them cope. Each chapter is dedicated to a different ailment of life, such as pain, loneliness, and grief. The author emphasizes that there is no cure or easy way out; only facing the challenges and understanding them will help one through. Setiya uses many schools of thought from the past and present, personal experiences, experts, and movie and TV show examples, all to demonstrate how philosophy can help people. A thorough notes section is included. This is not a self-help book where one walks away with a step-by-step plan. The purpose of this book is to show how philosophy can help with tough situations, and it isn't necessary to be knowledgeable about different philosophies. VERDICT Libraries that serve those interested in philosophy will want to make this a first purchase.--Michelle Lettus

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2022
A lighted path for dark times. In his previous book, Midlife, Setiya, a professor of philosophy at MIT, called upon myriad thinkers for guidance in overcoming his anguish when his life seemed "like a mere accumulation of deeds" as he strived for professional success. Now, amid an ongoing pandemic, mass unemployment, the ravages of climate change, and the revival of fascism, he again looks to philosophy, history, film, and literature for solace and illumination. Life is hard, to be sure, but thinkers and artists from Aquinas to Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson to P.D. James, Descartes to Sartre, help him to craft a "map with which to navigate rough terrain." Along with devastating global issues, one's sense of tumult and struggle can be fomented by physical disability and pain, psychic pain, loss, grief, a sense of personal failure, and injustice. Setiya was 27 when his own experience with chronic pain began suddenly with "a band of tension running through my groin." For more than a decade, the pain defied diagnosis, and it still besets him. Pain and disability, he reflects, shape our relationship to our bodies as well as "our relation to others and their relation to us." For Setiya, the pain's positive result was in generating his "presumptive compassion" for other people's experiences. Although he considers himself an "inveterate loner," the author underscores the importance of fostering connections. From Aristotle, the "great theorist of friendship," and others, Setiya sees that the way out of loneliness is "through the needs of other people." Confronting a feeling of powerlessness in the face of structural injustice or systemic problems, he counsels engagement with collective action in the service of a cause. For him, the cause is climate change; at MIT, he has become involved in the Fossil Free movement. Even in hard times, writes the author, we cannot lose hope: "standing with or searching for the truth, attending to what's possible." Pragmatic, compassionate advice.

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October 1, 2022
If life is hard, as Setiya (Midlife, 2017) posits in the title and introduction to this book, the following chapter headings do not seem to offer much reassurance: Infirmity, Loneliness, Grief, Failure, Injustice, and Absurdity. 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. Setiya pulls examples from literature, poetry, movies, comedy, religious tracts, and personal anecdotes to illustrate his points, managing to make abstract theories and arguments accessible. He applies philosophical principles to current events, including COVID and climate change, and offers fresh insights. Setiya ends with a chapter called ""Hope,"" wondering if hope is innately good or bad and just what, exactly, humankind should hope for. In answer, he offers a quote from philosopher Jonathan Lear about "" . . . radical hope . . . directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is."" Readers will find much to ponder.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.