Lebenskünstler

…a conversation on what we love about art and philosophy, and how that love has ineluctably become a part of our own living.

We talk about how art and philosophy can help one live more fully, each and every day…Art – so called – high Art, with a capital A – is usually set a part, in museums, often behind glass, or in upscale and rather forbidding galleries. It can frequently seem to be about things very few people understand or care about. Philosophy, meanwhile, is identified with the most abstruse and isolated of academic pursuits. With its abstract arguments and highly technical vocabulary, it, too, is seen as impractical and often irrelevant – as specialized as the art world seems to be. While philosophy claims to address questions of importance to all of us, its own pretensions (or pretentiousness) sets it apart from the everyday cares and business of living in much the same way that the pretensions of “high Art” seem to do. Not only do art and philosophy seem to be isolated from “real” or “everyday” life, but also seem to be as separate from one another as thinking and feeling, experience and analysis have come to be.

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…Art and philosophy, as invoked here, are to be lived and not merely talked about. We make the case that art and philosophy are not at odds with daily life; they are, in fact, essential to life itself.

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…The arts we discuss include painting, architecture, and music (among others), but also such seemingly humble pursuits as gardening and even walking. While this book addresses what is often referred to as the “inner life,” the authors also intend to show how attendance upon “inner” presupposes an engagement with the world around us.

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The way of living [Eric] Sloane describes is one that is characterized by an extraordinary awareness of life itself, by gratitude and inner satisfaction, one that is governed by routine and daily habit – that is by daily practice. It is, at the same time, a profoundly contemplative way of life. It draws its sustenance from a capacity for wonder.

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…to live artfully and philosophically is what it means to be truly alive.

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Living artfully and philosophically is not the same as taking a philosophy course alongside an art course. It is not an interdisciplinary undertaking, where one operates in two separate departments (or compartments) at once. As we hope the following chapters will help our readers to realize, to live philosophically is to live artfully, and vice versa.