Reading as a Philosophical Practice

Robert Piercey is Professor of Philosophy at Campion College, University of Regina, Canada. He is the author of The Uses of the Past From Heidegger to Rorty and The Crisis in Continental Philosophy, and editor of Philosophy in Review.

“Robert Piercey has written an important, engaging, and accessible book about books – specifically, about why we should all read more books. He argues that reading is a philosophical practice as conceived by Alasdair MacIntyre and that we should think about the benefits of the practice in terms of this conception rather than in the narrower frames of reference currently employed by the disciplines of literary aesthetics and literary criticism. Piercey has the enviable ability to both make an original contribution to academic scholarship across several disciplines and provide an intelligent and lively read for those that care about books outside the academy. To use his own term, this is a book for everyone who has a reading life, whether or not they are aware of it.” — Rafe McGregor, Senior Lecturer, Edge Hill University, UK

• Acknowledgements; 1. Philosophizing about Reading: The Very Idea; 2. The Reading Self; 3. The Reading Life; 4. Ethics from Reading?; 5. Ethics of Reading?; 6. Reading Things; 7. The Future of the Common Reader; Notes; Bibliography; Index.