Philosophy and Everyday Life

Most everybody has a philosophy of life, even if they cannot express it in words, and it typically changes according to life's experiences. What makes someone a philosopher is his or her continued interest in the questions life raises along the way. This original and insightful anthology steps outside the traditional philosophical focus on the questions of life, to emphasis the connections between life situations and the philosophical questions that arise. The aim of the essays in this book is to build a bridge between thought-provoking situations that come up in the course of daily life and the more abstract discussions of philosophical inquiry. Such universal issues as child discipline, bribery, knowledge, ethics, personhood, and politics are tackled. In highlighting the connection between the everyday and philosophy, the essays draw on the work of Aristotle, Plato, David Hume, John Locke, Karl Marx, Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, and many others.