The long life
In this accessibly written study Helen Small ranges widely from the writings of Plato through to recent philosophical work by Derek Parfit, Bernard Williams and others, and from Shakespeare's King Lear through works by Thomas Mann, Balzac, Dickens, Beckett, to more recent writings by Bellow, Roth, and Coetzee
xi, 346 pages ; 25 cm
9780199229932, 0199229937
137312951
Introduction; 1. The Platonic Threshold (Plato and Thomas Mann); 2. On Seeing the End (Aristotle and King Lear); 3. Narrative Unity of Lives (Epicureanism, the Narrative View, Saul Bellow); 4. The Power of Choosing (Prudential Life Planning, Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith); 5. Where Self-Interest Ends (Derek Parfit and Balzac); 6. The Bounded Life (Adorno's Metaphysics, Dickens, Beckett); 7. Now or Never (Bernard Williams, J.M. Coetzee, Philip Roth); 8. Evolved Senescence (Evolutionary theory, Michael Ignatieff's Scar Tissue); Conclusion