Scan barcode
A review by kingofspain93
Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya
4.25
my experience of the little philosophy I’ve read is that, if key questions are overlooked and fundamental assumptions made, it is in service of interrogating an idea or set of ideas that I have never before seen scrutinized. Setiya’s handling of the seemingly passé mid-life crisis continues this trend.
first, I think he misses on a few points. this is hilarious because I am massively uneducated but whatever. for example, I think he kind of glosses over things like the desire to live forever or seeking happiness through pure ego by stating something broad like “it’s silly and bad to want these things and we all know it” before moving on to whatever point he wants to make. regarding living forever, he doesn’t address how science has dangled achievements like this in front of us but capitalism/populism have prevented us from making the strides we could have by now. I guess my point is that I perceive him as ignoring things or cutting corners, but again it’s in service of a particular set of theses and I don’t really have an issue with that. he’s working to organize thought on a subject and I respect it.
the second big miss is that he doesn’t really address how the mid-life crisis is a very very gendered (and I would guess racialized and class-based) phenomenon. he acknowledges that such an evaluation is beyond his scope but I think there are philosophical implications to the mid-life crisis as a white male experience that could have been interesting to explore.
overall though his attempts to draw “rules” for resolving/treating crisis from the existing philosophical literature are engaging and promising. they are good jumping off points for further thought. his most compelling argument is for the division between telic and atelic activities and the different kinds of meanings associated with them. that chapter is the strongest of the book and is beyond a doubt my biggest takeaway for dealing with existential dread. probably it is applicable across time, but it feels especially relevant now in the toxic era of projects, hustles, and self-improvement ushered in by social media. certainly I was raised to value telic activities and I would like to rewire.
first, I think he misses on a few points. this is hilarious because I am massively uneducated but whatever. for example, I think he kind of glosses over things like the desire to live forever or seeking happiness through pure ego by stating something broad like “it’s silly and bad to want these things and we all know it” before moving on to whatever point he wants to make. regarding living forever, he doesn’t address how science has dangled achievements like this in front of us but capitalism/populism have prevented us from making the strides we could have by now. I guess my point is that I perceive him as ignoring things or cutting corners, but again it’s in service of a particular set of theses and I don’t really have an issue with that. he’s working to organize thought on a subject and I respect it.
the second big miss is that he doesn’t really address how the mid-life crisis is a very very gendered (and I would guess racialized and class-based) phenomenon. he acknowledges that such an evaluation is beyond his scope but I think there are philosophical implications to the mid-life crisis as a white male experience that could have been interesting to explore.
overall though his attempts to draw “rules” for resolving/treating crisis from the existing philosophical literature are engaging and promising. they are good jumping off points for further thought. his most compelling argument is for the division between telic and atelic activities and the different kinds of meanings associated with them. that chapter is the strongest of the book and is beyond a doubt my biggest takeaway for dealing with existential dread. probably it is applicable across time, but it feels especially relevant now in the toxic era of projects, hustles, and self-improvement ushered in by social media. certainly I was raised to value telic activities and I would like to rewire.