Reading as a Philosophical Practice

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Reading as a Philosophical Practiceasks why readingeveryday reading for pleasurematters so profoundly to so many people. Its answer is that reading is an implicitly philosophical activity. To passionate readers, it is a way of working through, and taking a stand on, certainfundamental questions about who and what we are, how we should live, and how we relate to other things.The bookexamines the lessons that the activity of reading seems to teach about selfhood, morality and ontology, and it tries to clarify the sometimes paradoxical claims that serious readers have made about it. To do so, it proposes an original theoretical framework based on Virginia Woolfs notion of the common reader and Alasdair MacIntyres conception of practice. It also asks whether reading can continue to play this role as paper is replaced by electronic screens.

Reviews

Robert Piercey has written an important, engaging, and accessible book about books specifically, about why we should all read more books. He argues that reading is a philosophical practice as conceived by Alasdair MacIntyre and that we should think about the benefits of the practice in terms of this conception rather than in the narrower frames of reference currently employed by the disciplines of literary aesthetics and literary criticism. Piercey has the enviable ability to both make an original contribution to academic scholarship across several disciplines and provide an intelligent and lively read for those that care about books outside the academy. To use his own term, this is a book for everyone who has a reading life, whether or not they are aware of it. Rafe McGregor, Senior Lecturer, Edge Hill University, UK

Drawing on rich historical and academic sources, Rob Piercey presents a clear and convincing case as to how reading can be philosophical. At a time when many of us have been brought back to our reading roots, Reading as a Philosophical Practice is the perfect companion in a time of COVID. Todd Mei, Associate Professor, Philosophy, University of Kent, UK

Robert Pierceys Reading as a Philosophical Practice is a humane and generous bookthat rare work that doubles as a rewarding scholarly inquiry and an accessible guide for the general reader. Sailing resolutely against the prevailing sentiment that books are an anachronism, Piercey believes that the practice of reading and the reading life offer a precious space of reflection for the cultivation of what is meaningful, and an indispensable element in the constitution of ones own self. A work clearly written by someone who loves his theme, Piercey elevates the existential claim that booksas a kind of beinghave upon us. John Arthos, Associate Professor of English, Indiana University

Author Bio

Robert Piercey is Professor of Philosophy at Campion College, University of Regina, Canada. He is the author of The Uses of the Past From Heidegger to Rorty and The Crisis in Continental Philosophy, and editor of Philosophy in Review.