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This and the Federalist review make the book sound really interesting! Then again, I was already interested in seeing what the fuss was about Tocqueville – a while back, I was reading Democracy in America in bits at night, but I didn’t make it past his discussion of municipal governments in New England. While I’d like to grab my copy of DiA from under my bed and take another stab at it, maybe I’ve got a better chance at finishing this book…
My gut reaction is that I might need a book on just Being before jumping into Being Freely. Hearing James’ observation that millennials are maturing less quickly than past generations, along with his comment about loneliness/awkwardness characterizing life for many people nowadays, is more true than I’d like to admit. And sometimes I get a whiff of how limited my experiences are, especially when older people tell me about their lives, but I haven’t thought about what the consequences of that are.
I don’t know about anyone else, but this podcast made me want to get out more!
I don’t recommend Heidegger’s Being and Time! But maybe a good book on Augustine’s early investigations of desire and happiness would work. I’d like to think I wrote it myself, but it’s best to let others say whether what I wrote was actually good.
A very good book on just being is Pierre Hadot’s What Is Ancient Philosophy? And, of course, there’s Plato’s Republic and Apology.
Hey, great conversation you got there, Conservatarians! (Almost finished listening.)
What someone said about Aurelius is so true, which is why another one of the great Stoicism books is written by a slave, Epictetus.
(Lest anyone think I’m well read, I hereby confess I haven’t read Tocqueville. What a loser I am, eh?)
Thanks for the recommendations (and un-recommendation)! I know I’ve got some Plato and Augustine in old philosophy readers from college I held on to… I’ll have to take a pass at those again. Your Youtube channel looks interesting too!
It’s funny how much more sense some of those texts can make when you’ve been out of school for a while (well, maybe that’s not as funny to professors like yourself!).