Showing results by author "Sarah Bakewell" in All Categories

Humanly Possible is a wide-ranging, personal, thought-provoking and entertaining journey through the battle of ideas over some 700 years of history—mostly, but not exclusively, in Europe. Through a mixture of biography and philosophy, Bakewell seeks to understand what humanism is, why it has continued to flourish despite opposition from fanatics, mystics, tyrants and cultural pessimists of all kinds, and exactly why we should value and defend it in the 21st century.

Humanism is an expansive tradition of thought that places shared humanity, cultural vibrancy, and moral responsibility at the center of our lives. For centuries, this worldview has inspired people to make their choices by principles of freethinking, intellectual inquiry, fellow feeling, and optimism. In this sweeping new history, Sarah Bakewell, herself a lifelong humanist, illuminates the very personal, individual, and, well, human matter of humanism and takes listeners on a grand intellectual adventure.

Paris, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, 'You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!'

Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the religious wars....

Wie macht man Philosophie aus Aprikosencocktails? Für Sartre kein Problem: Er machte Philosophie aus einem Schwindelgefühl, aus Voyeurismus, Scham, Sadismus, Revolution, Musik und Sex. Sarah Bakewell erzählt mit wunderbarer Leichtigkeit, wie der Existenzialismus zum Lebensgefühl einer Generation wurde, die sich nach radikaler Freiheit und authentischer Existenz sehnte. Ihre meisterhafte Kollektivbiographie der Existenzialisten ist zugleich eine höchst verführerische Einladung, die existenzialistische Lebenskunst heute neu zu entdecken.

Vor 700 Jahren kam die unverschämte Idee auf, dass der Mensch im Kern gut und frei ist und dass er auf der Suche nach Glück allein mit dem Kompass der Vernunft durch stürmische Zeiten steuern kann. Sarah Bakewell macht mit den italienischen Humanisten bekannt, die diese Idee in die Welt setzten, und beschreibt, wie inspirierend deren Neugierde, Forschergeist und Optimismus gewirkt haben, trotz aller Anfeindungen durch Theologen und Tyrannen.

Lies viel, vergiss das meiste wieder, und sei schwer von Begriff! - Habe ein Hinterzimmer in deinem Geschäft! - Tu etwas, was noch nie zuvor jemand getan hat! - Mach deinen Job gut, aber nicht zu gut! - Philosophiere nur zufällig! - Bedenke alles, bereue nichts! Mit diesen und anderen Antworten auf die eine Frage "Wie soll ich leben?" führt Sarah Bakewell durch das ungewöhnliche Leben des Weingutbesitzers, Liebhabers, Essayisten, Bürgermeisters und Reisenden Michel de Montaigne.