7 Philosophy Books to Read When Life Gets Tough
These books can give you a new perspective and a deeper understanding
Considering all the things happening around us, the world we live in today is everything but sunshine and rainbows. On every corner, we stumble upon something that will challenge us either personally or as a society as a whole.
Despite everything, it is crucial to keep your head up and foster hope for a better future and the preservation of humanity.
A good way to find comfort in hard times is to dive into the world of books — to read philosophers who look at the world and various situations from a broader and deeper perspective.
Because of their wit and wisdom, their understanding and perspective, as well as their spirit and language, they can give us peace and solace.
On the Shortness of Life
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
This book contains a collection of vital wisdom. In letters to his friend Paulinus, the Roman Stoic philosopher talks about eternal problems, while turning to the great thinkers of the past for help. He explores the meaning of life, the human vanity that obscures it, and the importance of filling every day of our existence with wise reasoning.
The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers
by Eric Weiner
“Much of life lies beyond our control, but we command what matters most: our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. Our mental and emotional life. We all possess Herculean strength, superhero powers, but it is the power to master our interior world. Do this, the Stoics say, and you will be ‘invincible’.”
Weiner’s The Socrate’s Express takes the reader on an unforgettable journey. Stops along the way — Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt. All these places are united by one thing —the flow of life and the formation of the greatest thinkers that mankind witnessed.
The book revolves around 14 philosophers. And it turns out that their lessons, even though they were written many centuries ago, can help solve modern problems.
How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal Philosophy
by Massimo Pigliucci, Skye Cleary and Daniel Kaufman
“We are born only once and cannot be born twice, and must forever live no more. You don’t control tomorrow, yet you postpone joy. Life is ruined by putting things off, and each of us dies without truly living.”
The collection from the science popularizers clearly, easily and interestingly describes the fundamental principles of different philosophical schools — Eastern and Western, ancient and modern: from Buddhism and Confucianism to existentialism and effective altruism.
The authors suggest that each of us has our own philosophy of life, whether we realize it or not. And it is priceless to find out while reading that Aristotelianism or another system of values has always been in tune with you.
A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living
by Massimo Pigliucci
“HERE IS A GOOD WAY to navigate your life: remember that for anything that happens to you, you will find the resources within you to deal with it.”
Stoicism is one of the most famous philosophical systems that appeared in ancient Greece. The modern American philosopher, relying on the views of the famous Stoic, the Roman slave philosopher Epictetus, reveals all the traits of the direction for modern readers.
As it turns out, for almost two millennia, the art of living simply, wisely, happily and harmoniously has not lost its relevance.
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
by William Irvine
“PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY, the Stoics argue, in large part because they are confused about what is valuable. Because of their confusion, they spend their days pursuing things that, rather than making them happy, make them anxious and miserable.”
Another attempt to turn to stoicism as a way to make yourself and the world around you better — this time from philosophy professor Irvine, based on Greek and Roman ideals.
The True Life
by Alain Badiou
“Young people can remain young indefinitely because there is no specific demarcation, which means that adulthood is both continually and partially an extension of childhood.”
The modern French philosopher Alain Badiou addresses young people who have lost their moral orientation and do not know where to move on and/or what to rely on. In the best traditions of ancient thinkers, he talks about good and evil, as well as temptations that lie ahead on the path of growing up.
My Belief: Essays on Life and Art
by Herman Hesse
“Among the many worlds which man did not receive as a gift of nature, but which he created with his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Every child, scrawling his first letters on his slate and attempting to read for the first time, in so doing, enters an artificial and complicated world; to know the laws and rules of this world completely and to practice them perfectly, no single human life is long enough. Without words, without writing, and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space in a single house or single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books.”
The collection contains Hesse’s essays about literature so dear and important to him. He talks about the role of literature in people’s lives and its main tasks. Part of the work is devoted to writers (among them — Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy), as well as famous Western philosophers, such as Spengler and Kierkegaard.