Buying pre-order items
Ebooks and Audiobook
You will receive an email with a download link for the ebook or audiobook on the publication date.
Payment
You will not be charged for pre-ordered books until they are available to be shipped. Pre-ordered ebooks will not be charged for until they are available for download.
Amending or cancelling your order
For orders that have not been shipped you can usually make changes to pre-orders up to 72 hours before the publishing date.
Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available
Description
This is a philosopher's journey from nihilism and skepticism to a renewed sense of everyday happiness.
Mark Anderson provides us with an entertaining account of what happens when we view reality, knowledge, and beauty from two opposed perspectives: Platonism and Nietzschean nihilism. As he travels through the ancient conflict between idealism and naturalism, he weaves in personal experiences as he discovers a skeptical attitude and arrives at an ordinary, happier life.
What happens when we take philosophy seriously and follow its conclusions to their limits? Anderson explores how philosophical commitments can shape, and sometimes unsettle, our lived experience. He shows how skepticism, left unchecked, can slide into nihilism, and turns to Zen Buddhism to confront its existential and psychological consequences.
Can we achieve happiness if we let go of obscure intellectual abstractions and return to a simple life, based on common-sense truth and goodness? Anderson's journey will be familiar to scholars working in the arts and humanities. This is a book to make you laugh, cry, and be happy.
Accessibility Information
Additional accessibility information
- PDF/UA-2, 1.4
- accessibility@bloomsbury.com
Hazards
The publication contains no hazards
Support for non-visual reading
Has alternative text descriptions for images
Navigation
- Page list to go to pages from the print source version
- Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
- All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
Table of Contents
Part One: Duck-Rabbit Skepticism
A. Duck (Platonism)
1. The Real
2. The True
3. The Good
4. The Beautiful
B. Rabbit (Naturalism)
1. Nothing is Real
2. Truth is a Kind of Error
3. Beyond Good and Evil
4. Beauty is a Feeling
Part Two: Ordinary Mind is the Way
1. Skepticism
2. Nihilism
3. Zen
4. More Zen than Zen
Part Three: Ataraxia
1. Melancholia
2. Life is Not Suffering
3. Happiness
Index
Product details
| Published | 20 Apr 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 176 |
| ISBN | 9781350677203 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |

























