CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Hunter, Jonathan Christopher |
|---|---|
| Title | Life is Bad |
| Summary | Life is bad and it is not obvious what to do about this. For lack of discussion in academic philosophy, my research took me elsewhere, to texts lost along the way. Jean-François Lyotard provides orientation in this peripheral intellectual Zone, which I understand as an original space colluded against by philosophers to avoid painful questions. I try to develop a method for philosophy beyond walls and without collusion called Witness. After considering some philosophers of the Zone, who all agree life is bad, I settle on Carlo Michelstaedter as the most promising aid in using philosophy to make life better. His key concepts, Rhetoric and Persuasion, trace general sets of reactions to the badness of life that eerily echo the reaction of philosophers to painful questions on the peripheries. Rhetoric ignores, disguises and flees where Persuasion accepts, and I combine mine and Michelstaedter’s philosophies in an account of persuaded witness that works to improve both philosophy and life. |
| Supervisor | Weberman, David |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/hunter_jonathan.pdf |
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