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Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living
Despite the flood of self-help guides and our current therapeutic culture, feelings of alienation and spiritual longing continue to grip modern society. In this book, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn offers a fresh a return to classic philosophy and the cultivation of an inner life. The ancient Roman philosopher Cicero wrote that philosophy is ars vitae , the art of living. Today, signs of stress and duress point to a full-fledged crisis for individuals and communities while current modes of making sense of our lives prove inadequate. Yet, in this time of alienation and spiritual longing, we can glimpse signs of a renewed interest in ancient approaches to the art of living. In this ambitious and timely book, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn engages both general readers and scholars on the topic of well-being. She examines the reappearance of ancient philosophical thought in contemporary American culture, probing whether new stirrings of Gnosticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, and Platonism present a true alternative to our current therapeutic culture of self-help and consumerism, which elevates the self’s needs and desires yet fails to deliver on its promises of happiness and healing. Do the ancient philosophies represent a counter-tradition to today’s culture, auguring a new cultural vibrancy, or do they merely solidify a modern way of life that has little use for inwardness―the cultivation of an inner life―stemming from those older traditions? Tracing the contours of this cultural resurgence and exploring a range of sources, from scholarship to self-help manuals, films, and other artifacts of popular culture, this book sees the different schools as organically interrelated and asks whether, taken together, they can point us in important new directions. Ars Vitae sounds a clarion call to take back philosophy as part of our everyday lives. It proposes a way to do so, sifting through the ruins of long-forgotten and recent history alike for any shards helpful in piecing together the coherence of a moral framework that allows us ways to move forward toward the life we want and need.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
480 pages, Hardcover
Published October 15, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 19, 2022
Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn wants to identify the problem with various contemporary approaches to life. Philosophy is the art of living, after all. It is not so much a way of thought as a way of thought that is espoused because it offers best way of life. She begins with all kinds of examples and summaries of contemporary approaches in the introduction. Then the book proceeds with a chapter on Gnosticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, and finally Platonism, before drawing a conclusion that handily dismisses Aristotelianism. (Aristotelianism is, as any true Platonist will tell you, a kind of truncated Platonism. I love how neatly she does it.) She is concerned that contemporary society is in the disarray it presently manifests because we have lost the art of living, and believes the solution is for it to be informed by the best philosophy.
What is unusual about a book explaining and evaluating ancient philosophies is how much of contemporary culture of all sorts it contains. If you come to the book for the philosophy, what you have to get through in the introduction and early part of each chapter can be a chore. She describes books and films, but in a measured, scholarly way that is as lively as that approach can be expected to be, but no more. And there is always the problem that classifying movies and books according to ancient philosophy shows how much the former have to be stretched so that they can usefully be explained by the latter. Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code is easily representative of the gnostic mindset, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) is used for Stoicism, Ryan Murphy’s Eat Pray Love (2010) for Epicureanism (along with other cooking-oriented movies and shows), and Zach Snyders’s 300 (2006) along with an awful lot of Foucault for Cynicism. A contemporary Aristotelian (a Thomist, say) reading the book might be relieved to see there is really no movie pairing for the Peripatetic school (Babbete’s Feast springs to mind). Pairing Platonism with Nolan Ryan’s Interstellar (2014) leaves this Platonist with mixed feelings. Is the fifth dimension in the wormhole love? That is quite an allegorical reading of the film. But if you allow it, the rest flows. Why do it, why include these artifacts from the popular culture of this new millennium? Because she wants to point out how these ideas live on. This is not a book about how these ideas are distorted, though there is some of that, but about how the territory of philosophy was mapped out in ancient times. Those maps are still more reliable, and reliable enough to locate even such recent artefacts within a certain philosophical territory.
The strength of the book is the concise description of each approach. There are far too many takes, for example, on the gnostic phenomenon which approach it with an agenda. There is some modern phenomenon that people want to have labeled gnostic, and so the ancient phenomenon is described with that target in view so that the label can be affixed and the trigger immediately pulled. Lasch-Quinn approaches each option correctly, and her evaluation and critique of Gnosticism is informed and accurate (she has, after all, read Plotinus). So is her much briefer critique of Aristotelianism—but I may have mentioned that already. In fact, they all are, and as the chapters continue, the book makes an interesting argument for the last standing philosophy, that of Plotinus.
Unusually prominent in a book of this kind are Foucault and Plotinus. That Foucault should figure so prominently is off-putting but, in the end, necessary. Foucault as the found of endless cynicism is not that hard to accept. Lasch-Quinn is not an admirer. My only complaint here is why did she not just deal with him Aristotle-wise? As if proving that Foucault were a copious fount of cynicism were a difficult thing. But she fixes the balance by talking long and hard about the great and admirable Plotinus. This is as unusual as it is welcome. More Plotinus will do this world a world of good. If to read so much about Plotinus one has to wade through equal parts on Foucault first, I will always in the end accept this somewhat Stoical method. The result is that clear views of Platonism that distinguish it from Aristotle’s truncations, the Gnostic distortions (she approaches some of this through Albert Camus’ rejection of Harnack’s Hellenization thesis, which approach was entirely new to me), from Cynical substitutions, Stoic swerves and reductions, and from the Epicurean delusion.
If all you want to do is find out why each of the discarded approaches should be discarded as a way of life, this is your book. If beyond that you want some useful philosophical distinctions and worthwhile mental stimulation while being exposed to a nearly overwhelming variety of research in every sort of library from the most academic there is to Netflix, this is decidedly a book for you.
_____________________________________________________
Material complaint: I wish that Notre Dame had not bound this book quite the way they did. It is bound with undergraduate library consultation in view. Sturdy, heavy, unwieldy, at over 350 pages it is best read at a table. You can hold it, but when your chapters are clocking it at 50 pages, and you have philosophical content, you will find yourself wishing they had used lighter paper and bound it in covers somewhat less-than-bulletproof. Perhaps they believe most people will simply read an electronic copy.
What is unusual about a book explaining and evaluating ancient philosophies is how much of contemporary culture of all sorts it contains. If you come to the book for the philosophy, what you have to get through in the introduction and early part of each chapter can be a chore. She describes books and films, but in a measured, scholarly way that is as lively as that approach can be expected to be, but no more. And there is always the problem that classifying movies and books according to ancient philosophy shows how much the former have to be stretched so that they can usefully be explained by the latter. Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code is easily representative of the gnostic mindset, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) is used for Stoicism, Ryan Murphy’s Eat Pray Love (2010) for Epicureanism (along with other cooking-oriented movies and shows), and Zach Snyders’s 300 (2006) along with an awful lot of Foucault for Cynicism. A contemporary Aristotelian (a Thomist, say) reading the book might be relieved to see there is really no movie pairing for the Peripatetic school (Babbete’s Feast springs to mind). Pairing Platonism with Nolan Ryan’s Interstellar (2014) leaves this Platonist with mixed feelings. Is the fifth dimension in the wormhole love? That is quite an allegorical reading of the film. But if you allow it, the rest flows. Why do it, why include these artifacts from the popular culture of this new millennium? Because she wants to point out how these ideas live on. This is not a book about how these ideas are distorted, though there is some of that, but about how the territory of philosophy was mapped out in ancient times. Those maps are still more reliable, and reliable enough to locate even such recent artefacts within a certain philosophical territory.
The strength of the book is the concise description of each approach. There are far too many takes, for example, on the gnostic phenomenon which approach it with an agenda. There is some modern phenomenon that people want to have labeled gnostic, and so the ancient phenomenon is described with that target in view so that the label can be affixed and the trigger immediately pulled. Lasch-Quinn approaches each option correctly, and her evaluation and critique of Gnosticism is informed and accurate (she has, after all, read Plotinus). So is her much briefer critique of Aristotelianism—but I may have mentioned that already. In fact, they all are, and as the chapters continue, the book makes an interesting argument for the last standing philosophy, that of Plotinus.
Unusually prominent in a book of this kind are Foucault and Plotinus. That Foucault should figure so prominently is off-putting but, in the end, necessary. Foucault as the found of endless cynicism is not that hard to accept. Lasch-Quinn is not an admirer. My only complaint here is why did she not just deal with him Aristotle-wise? As if proving that Foucault were a copious fount of cynicism were a difficult thing. But she fixes the balance by talking long and hard about the great and admirable Plotinus. This is as unusual as it is welcome. More Plotinus will do this world a world of good. If to read so much about Plotinus one has to wade through equal parts on Foucault first, I will always in the end accept this somewhat Stoical method. The result is that clear views of Platonism that distinguish it from Aristotle’s truncations, the Gnostic distortions (she approaches some of this through Albert Camus’ rejection of Harnack’s Hellenization thesis, which approach was entirely new to me), from Cynical substitutions, Stoic swerves and reductions, and from the Epicurean delusion.
If all you want to do is find out why each of the discarded approaches should be discarded as a way of life, this is your book. If beyond that you want some useful philosophical distinctions and worthwhile mental stimulation while being exposed to a nearly overwhelming variety of research in every sort of library from the most academic there is to Netflix, this is decidedly a book for you.
_____________________________________________________
Material complaint: I wish that Notre Dame had not bound this book quite the way they did. It is bound with undergraduate library consultation in view. Sturdy, heavy, unwieldy, at over 350 pages it is best read at a table. You can hold it, but when your chapters are clocking it at 50 pages, and you have philosophical content, you will find yourself wishing they had used lighter paper and bound it in covers somewhat less-than-bulletproof. Perhaps they believe most people will simply read an electronic copy.
March 17, 2021
There are many fascinating plums in this big rich pudding of a book. One of the sections I especially enjoyed was the detailed discussion of the apparently Stoic themes in the film “Gladiator.” However, as this is carefully and brilliantly dissected, it is revealed that things are not quite as they seem. Maximus is motivated by revenge and violence which are not compatible with Stoic detachment; the film is therefore – despite its superficial Stoicism – decidedly un-Stoic, and an extreme form of the therapeutic culture. This therapeutic culture is at the root of why the contemporary West is so unfit for purpose:
“What is so alarming about the therapeutic culture is not its focus on emotion itself, but rather its focus on the individual at the exclusion of his deep need for connection with others, and the loss of a sense of sacred transcendence as a basis for that connection.”
Instead, we have the fetishisation of “I’m a damaged child”, the emotional incompetence and dependency which therapeutic culture (and its evil twin Identity politics) encourages.
Gnosticism, Epicureanism, and Platonism are all also given careful and detailed consideration, in both their original forms and their contemporary interpretations, to provide us with some help in sifting out from them what could be useful.
I found all of this fascinating, although there is no doubt that (for me, at any rate) it was sometimes demanding and required close attention. (And I’m guessing that the recent Oprah interview with Meghan Markle and Harry Windsor is just the kind of pseudo-therapeutic nonsense that Lasch-Quinn most despises). I did find myself mentally picking out the “best bits” of each chapter that I might polish up to fit into aspects of my own life. Although I think this is a very good and worthwhile exercise, it also left me with the slightly uncomfortable thought of the author leaning across and giving me a wide eyed Oprah stare while she says, “Just choose whatever is true for you, Monty”. But don’t let this put you off: if you have the stamina for it, there are treasures a-plenty in these pages.
“What is so alarming about the therapeutic culture is not its focus on emotion itself, but rather its focus on the individual at the exclusion of his deep need for connection with others, and the loss of a sense of sacred transcendence as a basis for that connection.”
Instead, we have the fetishisation of “I’m a damaged child”, the emotional incompetence and dependency which therapeutic culture (and its evil twin Identity politics) encourages.
Gnosticism, Epicureanism, and Platonism are all also given careful and detailed consideration, in both their original forms and their contemporary interpretations, to provide us with some help in sifting out from them what could be useful.
I found all of this fascinating, although there is no doubt that (for me, at any rate) it was sometimes demanding and required close attention. (And I’m guessing that the recent Oprah interview with Meghan Markle and Harry Windsor is just the kind of pseudo-therapeutic nonsense that Lasch-Quinn most despises). I did find myself mentally picking out the “best bits” of each chapter that I might polish up to fit into aspects of my own life. Although I think this is a very good and worthwhile exercise, it also left me with the slightly uncomfortable thought of the author leaning across and giving me a wide eyed Oprah stare while she says, “Just choose whatever is true for you, Monty”. But don’t let this put you off: if you have the stamina for it, there are treasures a-plenty in these pages.
August 18, 2021
At many points an upper class lament at the decline of the Western canon educationally, I struggle to accept any of the key claims of the author. One of the key claims that she makes is that there is a greater store of wisdom and guidance to be found in classicism and classical Western philosophy and that this reverberates through to the present and is capable of being traced in contemporary culture. Paradoxically however she also identifies how contemporary self-help culture, consumerism, and obsessive individualism in our world leads us to a culture characterised by malaise and sickness. These two contradictory strands are never properly reconciled. And I would suggest it comes from a fundamental assumption that the author makes.
That assumption is that there really is something to be found in these ancient texts that the modern consumerist self-help book, or the latest product of our so-called therapeutic culture, does not equal in value. I think this to be a questionable assumption. As is often said, there is no such thing as a new argument, just different contexts. One can doubt whether the basic moral quandaries and solutions raised in any of those philosophies - whether it be stoicism or whatever - are so far removed from what self-help grapples with today, albeit perhaps in a less thoughtful manner.
To use an analogy of which the author would perhaps be fond, she at many points resembles the soldiers looking upon the orgies of Les Romains de la décadence. There are many passages rich in criticism of the emptiness, selfishness, shallowness, decadence and indulgence of contemporary capitalism. Yet like the soldiers, the author, doing nothing but silently judging, provides little attempt to understand the root causes of self-help culture, other than a vague reference to consumerism near the beginning of the book. Nor any real attempt to outline why self-help culture really differs from what Marcus Aurelius did when he kept his diary. Rather than postulating the high moral grandeur of prior moral philosophy, we can recognise it as yet another flailing attempt to provide us with the usual comforts we seek in a brutally purposeless world. And the fact such philosophy endures is because of its cultural stock, and nothing more.
I also found the reference to Foucault as a cynic just so wrong (and perhaps ironically so given the cynicism of my review). That is a caricature in light of him having a positive philosophy fuelled by many positive notions (positive as in content-full), especially in concepts such as power. In fact I think the many analyses of contemporary texts - such as the screenplay from Gladiator - suffer from the same shallowness in critique.
That assumption is that there really is something to be found in these ancient texts that the modern consumerist self-help book, or the latest product of our so-called therapeutic culture, does not equal in value. I think this to be a questionable assumption. As is often said, there is no such thing as a new argument, just different contexts. One can doubt whether the basic moral quandaries and solutions raised in any of those philosophies - whether it be stoicism or whatever - are so far removed from what self-help grapples with today, albeit perhaps in a less thoughtful manner.
To use an analogy of which the author would perhaps be fond, she at many points resembles the soldiers looking upon the orgies of Les Romains de la décadence. There are many passages rich in criticism of the emptiness, selfishness, shallowness, decadence and indulgence of contemporary capitalism. Yet like the soldiers, the author, doing nothing but silently judging, provides little attempt to understand the root causes of self-help culture, other than a vague reference to consumerism near the beginning of the book. Nor any real attempt to outline why self-help culture really differs from what Marcus Aurelius did when he kept his diary. Rather than postulating the high moral grandeur of prior moral philosophy, we can recognise it as yet another flailing attempt to provide us with the usual comforts we seek in a brutally purposeless world. And the fact such philosophy endures is because of its cultural stock, and nothing more.
I also found the reference to Foucault as a cynic just so wrong (and perhaps ironically so given the cynicism of my review). That is a caricature in light of him having a positive philosophy fuelled by many positive notions (positive as in content-full), especially in concepts such as power. In fact I think the many analyses of contemporary texts - such as the screenplay from Gladiator - suffer from the same shallowness in critique.
February 26, 2022
It is probably not what one is supposed to do, but this book gets five stars not only for the author's intelligent and insightful treatment of the material, but also for the extent to which our society needs these lessons.
The most important part of the book for me was the author's treatment of what we might call the Therapeutic Self-Help Society. She offers cogent observations on the inward nature of that attitude, and its almost contradictory conditions of virtue signaling and solipsism. I hope the reader will pardon a long but crucial quotation from that chapter: "The problem is not the turn inward, but the question of how and why we look within. If the turn inward ultimately aims to serve both the human person and collective purposes, that end differs drastically from the goal of serving individual success and self-promotion. The culprit is not personal achievement by itself but the larger context of elitism and exclusion that goes with a zero-sum culture that has no recourse to a greater good or public interest, a culture of wealth at any cost and fame for any reason. Only if it takes place within a moral framework does personal achievement transform from a purely private matter to a public good."
For a less serious and uproariously funny approach that nevertheless arrives at many of the same conclusions, the astute reader will not fail to pick up Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book You Will Ever Need.
The author then goes on to look at strains of ancient philosophy that show up to enlighten us today, though she does not hesitate to point out where twists and turns have derogated from these ancient philosophical approaches. Her preferred tools are those of popular culture: The Da Vinci Code, Eat Pray Love, The Gladiator, etc. This examination of evidence of ancient philosophy in modern culture is not academic or trivial: "Tracing the contours of this cultural resurgence, this study sees the different schools as organically interrelated and asks whether, taken together, they could point us in important new directions."
Specialists will no doubt find the scholarly notes and extensive bibliography important. The general, interested reader will find plenty of material in the text itself. The author's treatment of these current cultural phenomena caused me to reconsider them. As an afterthought, it would be terrific to see a similar treatment of two movies that I have thought really attempt to tackle the inward/outward dilemma: What Time Is It There and Lost in Translation.
The most important part of the book for me was the author's treatment of what we might call the Therapeutic Self-Help Society. She offers cogent observations on the inward nature of that attitude, and its almost contradictory conditions of virtue signaling and solipsism. I hope the reader will pardon a long but crucial quotation from that chapter: "The problem is not the turn inward, but the question of how and why we look within. If the turn inward ultimately aims to serve both the human person and collective purposes, that end differs drastically from the goal of serving individual success and self-promotion. The culprit is not personal achievement by itself but the larger context of elitism and exclusion that goes with a zero-sum culture that has no recourse to a greater good or public interest, a culture of wealth at any cost and fame for any reason. Only if it takes place within a moral framework does personal achievement transform from a purely private matter to a public good."
For a less serious and uproariously funny approach that nevertheless arrives at many of the same conclusions, the astute reader will not fail to pick up Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book You Will Ever Need.
The author then goes on to look at strains of ancient philosophy that show up to enlighten us today, though she does not hesitate to point out where twists and turns have derogated from these ancient philosophical approaches. Her preferred tools are those of popular culture: The Da Vinci Code, Eat Pray Love, The Gladiator, etc. This examination of evidence of ancient philosophy in modern culture is not academic or trivial: "Tracing the contours of this cultural resurgence, this study sees the different schools as organically interrelated and asks whether, taken together, they could point us in important new directions."
Specialists will no doubt find the scholarly notes and extensive bibliography important. The general, interested reader will find plenty of material in the text itself. The author's treatment of these current cultural phenomena caused me to reconsider them. As an afterthought, it would be terrific to see a similar treatment of two movies that I have thought really attempt to tackle the inward/outward dilemma: What Time Is It There and Lost in Translation.
May 24, 2020
I am reviewing this book as a reader. Not as a scholar or academic of philosophy. It was a very heavy read, as was expected, due to the complex analyses of various philosophies to ponder ‘Ars Vitae’ or the art of living. This book suggests that the modern therapeutic culture of today has become about personal fulfillment and impulse release without having an agreed upon framework for how and why these are being attained. My understanding is that there is no collective commitment to an aspirational life, one that involves connecting to a higher truth, which may be found in beauty and virtue.
I don’t believe the author came to any conclusions, rather she offered analyses and critiques into various philosophies in the hopes that the varied interpretations of what life is really about would lead to an introspection for the reader about what living life truly means. It seems that the author advocated Platonism as the best example of the “ars vitae” as it suggests that everything is an abstraction of some greater truth that can only be felt through love. This could have been expanded upon because it felt a little rushed compared to the other chapters. Is truth subjective? It must be, because philosophy is an interpretation of what that truth might be. But if the modern therapeutic culture is fractured because there is not agreed upon truth, where is society heading? This is never clearly answered in this book, which was frustrating.
I think the author needed a louder voice because it was convoluted with vast opinions about the pros and cons of each philosophy by many different academics, scholars, authors, etc.
I hope the author will include some essays or explanations of her thesis in this book to accompany its release, because I was left feeling more confused about the art of living than I was before reading it.
What is “ars vitae?” Is it living life to my truth or to some greater truth that has yet to be framed? Can it even be framed?
I don’t believe the author came to any conclusions, rather she offered analyses and critiques into various philosophies in the hopes that the varied interpretations of what life is really about would lead to an introspection for the reader about what living life truly means. It seems that the author advocated Platonism as the best example of the “ars vitae” as it suggests that everything is an abstraction of some greater truth that can only be felt through love. This could have been expanded upon because it felt a little rushed compared to the other chapters. Is truth subjective? It must be, because philosophy is an interpretation of what that truth might be. But if the modern therapeutic culture is fractured because there is not agreed upon truth, where is society heading? This is never clearly answered in this book, which was frustrating.
I think the author needed a louder voice because it was convoluted with vast opinions about the pros and cons of each philosophy by many different academics, scholars, authors, etc.
I hope the author will include some essays or explanations of her thesis in this book to accompany its release, because I was left feeling more confused about the art of living than I was before reading it.
What is “ars vitae?” Is it living life to my truth or to some greater truth that has yet to be framed? Can it even be framed?
September 19, 2020
Ars Vitae explores various branches and examples of philosophy. It traces their history and analyses their recent growth as well as relevance to our modern lives.
WHY I LOVE THE BOOK
The author is fairly rigorous in her explanation of some modern phenomenon of philosophy. From Wachowskis' Matrix to Ridley Scott's Gladiator, she explains various modern takes on ancient philosophy and the impact they've made on the public.
Ars Vitae also looks at the darker side of these modern interpretations and the influence of charlatans in the philosophy sphere.
DISLIKES
None.
WHO IS IT FOR
Philosophy and self-help nerds will find one or two things to like here.
Many thanks to the University of Notre Dame Press for a review copy.
WHY I LOVE THE BOOK
The author is fairly rigorous in her explanation of some modern phenomenon of philosophy. From Wachowskis' Matrix to Ridley Scott's Gladiator, she explains various modern takes on ancient philosophy and the impact they've made on the public.
Ars Vitae also looks at the darker side of these modern interpretations and the influence of charlatans in the philosophy sphere.
DISLIKES
None.
WHO IS IT FOR
Philosophy and self-help nerds will find one or two things to like here.
Many thanks to the University of Notre Dame Press for a review copy.
January 3, 2021
I've been reading books and online articles about Stoicism. Ars Vitae appealed to me because I wanted to learn about some of the competing philosophies. Unfortunately, this was the wrong book for that purpose. The book advertises itself for general readers and scholars, but as a general reader, my opinion is that the book is for scholars. I would have preferred that much of the material be in footnotes or appendices instead of in the narrative. The book is dense for a relative beginner like me. That's not to say that the book isn't worthwhile. I ponderously plowed through every word, underlining ideas and concepts that I wanted to review again. In retrospect, I would have been better off with a book not written for scholars.
December 13, 2021
This is a thought-provoking read though in places it drags along and the connection with her subject matter and the philosophy in focus are not clear at times. This is at least one attempt, an attempt I am grateful for, at responding positively to the postmodern Nihilism that pervades our culture. How do we go about living well? This will kick-start your thoughts.
December 9, 2020
It's okay.
January 20, 2022
Fantastic. Christopher would be so proud of what she's achieved here. Will require multiple readings to extract all the gold buried within.
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July 26, 2022See Sapientia (soon) for my thoughts…
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