The Shrink and the Sage

A Guide to Living

Antonia Macaro, Julian Baggini

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN:
  9781848313781
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Based on their Financial Times Weekend column, philosopher Julian Baggini and his psychotherapist partner Antonia Macaro offer intriguing answers to life's questions. Can infidelity be good for you? What does it mean to stay true to yourself? Must we fulfil our potential? Self-help with a distinctly cerebral edge, the shrink and the sage - aka Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro - have been dispensing advice through their FT column since October 2010. Combining practical advice on personal dilemmas with meditations on the meaning of concepts like free will, spirituality and independence, this book - their first together - expands on these columns and adds much more. Through questions of existential unease, metaphysical trauma and - for instance - how much we should care about our appearance, intellectual agony uncle and aunt team Baggini and Macaro begin to piece together the answer that we'd all like to hear: what is the good life, and how we can live it?

Table of contents

• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the authors
• Introduction
• The way of Aristotle
• PART ONE
• Being the best you can
• The problem with happiness
• On goals
• Being true to yourself
• What should you do before you die?
• Being torn
• Dealing with emotions
• What should you be proud of?
• Gut feelings and intuitions
• Contrary to appearances?
• Will and resolution
• The varieties of self-love worth having
• On self-deception
• The status of status
• Are you responsible?
• The happy pessimist
• No regrets?
• Meaning and spirituality
• Thought and action
• On paying attention
• PART TWO
• Psychology for Philosophers
• Philosophy for Psychotherapy
• Conclusion: the serenity mantra
• Notes