Handbook of Transformative Philosophy
Description
The Handbook offers a theoretical and practical guide to transformative philosophies, drawing on past theories still viable today and on contemporary approaches which prioritize key transformative notions. Bringing together international top scholars, this handbook breaks ground in its scope and depth, its erudition and originality, its theory and practice. The new field it defines ultimately addresses the question of what philosophy is, what it has been, and what it can be.
Part I offers historical perspectives on the transformative power of philosophy from antiquity to the 21st century. Addressing first various epochs in Western philosophy (Ancient and Hellenistic Philosophies; Late modern and Medieval; Renaissance and modern philosophies), it also formulates the impact that Eastern philosophies, chiefly Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, had on the west, and without which the last two centuries of transformative philosophy cannot be understood.
Part II is divided thematically rather than historically and focuses on contemporary approaches to transformative philosophies. Each chapter addresses in depth one central notion, which, when brought to bear on practice, helps to define a new field in transformative philosophy. They include awareness, wonder, imagination, will, decision, experience, understanding, birth, autonomy, love, integrity, self-esteem, meaning, joy, humor, and happiness.
By unraveling the transformative power of philosophy, this handbook hopes to strengthen philosophy's place in the academe as a force to reckon with. By enabling personal change for the benefit of the individual and the society in which we live, it answers contemporary concerns. By making explicit the transformative power of various philosophies, of different philosophic notions, and of philosophy itself as an ambitious discipline which critically changes one's mind through the mixture of rational and non-rational elements, the Transformative Philosophy Handbook lays the ground for a new philosophic field, whose influence will transcend narrow concerns. This Handbook appeals to students and researchers in academic philosophy and related disciplines.
More details
Person
Professor Lydia Amir teaches at the Philosophy Department at Tufts University. She is Founding President of the International Association for the Philosophy of Humor and Co-Director of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Her work as a philosophical practitioner, along her academic career, has been described in the New Yorker Magazine in December 2023. Known for the thesis of Homo risibilis - the ridiculous human being - as a contemporary philosophy for our global times and an untimely contribution to philosophy's perennial problems, she has published articles, essays, and monographs in ethics, the history and practice of philosophy, meta-philosophy, and humor. Of relevance to the topics of the Handbook are Rethinking Philosophers' Responsibility (2017), Taking Philosophy Seriously (2018), Philosophy, Humor, and the Human Condition: Taking Ridicule Seriously (2019), and the Introduction to Transformative Philosophy (forthcoming in Springer); the edited collections, Practicing Philosophy (2015, with Aleksandar Fatic) and New Frontiers in Philosophical Practice (2017); The Handbook of Philosophy of Humor (Palgrave Macmillan), The Companion to the Philosophy of the Human Condition (Brill), and the forthcoming Companion to Living from Philosophy: Philosophy as a Way of Life (Wiley-Blackwell). She edits, among others, the Philosophy of Humor Yearbook , which she has founded along with four book series, de Gruyter Studies in Philosophy of Humor, Brill Series in the Philosophy of the Human Condition, de Gruyter Studies in Spinoza and his Legacy, and Lexington Series in Philosophical Practice that publishes monographs on transformative philosophy.
Content
Ancient and Hellenistic Philosophy - Christelle Veillard.- Late Antiquity and Medieval Philosophy - David Bartosch.- Renaissance and Modern Philosophy - Lydia Amir.- Eastern Philosophies Influencing the West - Lou Marinoff.- Awareness - Rick Repetti.- Wonder - Finn Thorbjørn Hansen.- Imagination - Amy Kind.- Will - Andrea Hurst.- Decision - Enoch Lambert.- Experience - Jose Barrientos-Rastrojo.- Understanding - Anders Lindseth.- Birth Experience - Stella Villarmea and Chon Tejedor.- Autonomy - Rebekah Johnston.- Love - G. John Abbarno.- Integrity - Alfred Archer.- Self-esteem - Richard Keshen.- Meaning - Thaddeus Metz.- Happiness, Joy, Humor - Lydia Amir.