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Virtual FAN Event with Kieran Setiya on March 16

March 13, 2023  8:00pm CT

 

Virtual FAN event with Kieran Setiya and Jim Holt on March 16.
Kieran Setiya, Ph.D., and Jim Holt  
(image from www.familyactionnetwork.net

 

"Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way," a conversation between Kieran Setiya, Ph.D., and Jim Holt, will be held on Thursday, March 16, beginning at 7:00pm via Zoom. The event is free, suitable for ages 12 and up. Registration is required.

 

There is no cure for the human condition: life is hard. But Kieran Setiya, Ph.D. believes philosophy can help. He offers us a map for navigating rough terrain, from personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world. In his profound and personal book Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, Setiya draws on ancient and modern philosophy as well as fiction, history, memoir, film, comedy, social science, and stories from Setiya’s own experience. Life Is Hard is a book for this moment—a work of solace and compassion.



Warm, accessible, and good-humored, Life is Hard is about making the best of a bad lot. It offers guidance for coping with pain and making new friends, for grieving the lost and failing with grace, for confronting injustice and searching for meaning in life. Countering pop psychologists and online influencers who admonish us to “find our bliss” and “live our best lives,” Setiya acknowledges that the best is often out of reach. Instead, he asks how we can weather life’s adversities, finding hope and living well when life is hard.



Setiya will be in conversation with Jim Holt, author of the 2012 book Why Does the World Exist?, an international best-seller that has been translated into twenty languages. He is also the author of When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought (2018) and Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes (2008). Holt is a longtime contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books.

 

The event will be recorded and available later on FAN’s website and YouTube channel. For more information, including a list of sponsors for the March 16 webinar, visit the Family Action Network website.