The Examined Life
Cover of the first edition
AuthorRobert Nozick
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhilosophy
PublisherSimon & Schuster
Publication date
1989
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages308
ISBN0-671-72501-7

The Examined Life is a 1989 collection of philosophical meditations by the philosopher Robert Nozick.[1] The book drew a number of critical reactions. The work is drawn partially as a response to Socrates assertion in Plato's "The Apology of Socrates" that the unexamined life is one not worth living[2][3]

Summary

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The book is an attempt to "tackle human nature, the personal, 'the holiness of everyday life' and its meaning."[4] Nozick expresses his concerns with libertarianism and proposes some form of inheritance taxation.[5][6] According to reviewers such as Thomas Kelly, Nozick used The Examined Life as well as another work to "explicitly [disown]" the earlier radical libertarian concepts he presented in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.[7]

Reception

Denis Donoghue praised The Examined Life in The Wilson Quarterly, but stated that it had some passages that were less strong than others.[2] The journalist Jane O'Grady called the work "disappointingly schmaltzy" in The Guardian.[4]

In The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (2005), the philosopher Anthony Quinton described The Examined Life as "unkindly treated".[8]

Jim Holt, a columnist for The Literary Review leaves a few remarks about the "semantic slum", essentially deeming it "trickled down philosophy", saying that it is not worth following/reading.

Notes

  1. ^ Capaldi, Nicholas (1998). The Enlightenment Project in the Analytic Conversation. Springer. p. 371. ISBN 9780792350149.
  2. ^ a b Donoghue, Denis (Spring 1990). "The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations by Robert Nozick (review)". The Wilson Quarterly. 14 (2): 92–94. JSTOR 40258049.
  3. ^ "Apology", Plato: Euthyphro; Apology of Socrates; and Crito, Oxford University Press, 1924-01-01, doi:10.1093/oseo/instance.00254376, ISBN 978-0-19-814015-3, retrieved 2021-09-21
  4. ^ a b O' Grady, Jane (January 26, 2002). "Robert Nozick: Leftwing political philosopher whose rightward shift set the tone for the Reagan-Thatcher era". The Guardian.
  5. ^ Wolff, Jonathan (1991). Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 156. ISBN 0-8047-1856-3.
  6. ^ Guido Erreygers, Toon Vandevelde (1997). Is Inheritance Legitimate?: Ethical and Economic Aspects of Wealth Transfers. Springer. p. 8. ISBN 9783540627258.
  7. ^ Kelly, Thomas (2002-07-16). "Review of Robert Nozick". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. ISSN 1538-1617. Archived from the original on 2023-01-30.
  8. ^ Quinton, Anthony (2005). Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 740. ISBN 0-19-926479-1.


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