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The Rule of the Game. On the Difficulty of Learning Philosophy

José Luis Pardo

José Luis Pardo has demonstrated a true vocation to exercise that special way of thinking which we denominate philosophy.

This vocation is still present in his latest book, La regla del juego, in which he attempts to find the rules of the game that guide the innumerable activities of our everyday lives. With the thread of time and sense, the author knits a fascinating discourse that encompasses global pedagogical appreciations, political analysis and a tour through the history of universal thought, from Socrates, Plato or Aristotle to Nietzsche and Spinoza, without forgetting a critical examination of the current problem of our youth or of the job market. The final objective of this voyage is no other than trying to decipher what it really means to learn, and if, in a society such as ours, it is still possible to discover where knowledge lies.

For these reasons, La regal del juego does not pretend to be an introduction to philosophy but an initiation into it and, as such, a way to review from our present viewpoint its cardinal problems. The major difficulty within philosophy consists in carrying out a conversion by means of which the resistance of will can be defeated. In the last twenty five centuries, that conversion was given the name of learning, and Plato already stated that it only had one requisite: free time, time of freedom, time for the truth. It is not an easy requirement to fulfil, but the purpose of philosophy is to convert what is impossible into the "simply difficult."

Translated by Peter J. Hearn

Book Details

Title:
La regla del juego. Sobre la dificultad de aprender filosofía (2004)
Author:
José Luis Pardo
Publisher:
Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores
ISBN:
84-8109-429-3

Authors > José Luis Pardo

José Luis Pardo
© Foto Archivo El País

José Luis Pardo

(Madrid, Spain, 1954). He is professor of Philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid. He regularly writes for periodicals such as El Viejo Topo, Los Cuadernos del Norte, Revista de Occidente, Archipiélago o Claves de razón práctica, and in the cultural section of El País. He has translated to Spanish contemporary philosophy authors such as F. Jameson, G. Debord, M. Serres, E. Levinas, G. Agamben and G. Deleuze. He is co-author and coordinator of Preferiría no hacerlo. Ensayos sobre Bartleby (Pre-textos, Valencia, 2000) and of Palabras Cruzadas. Una invitación a la filosofía together with Fernando Savater (Pre-textos, Valencia, 2003). He has given courses and conferences in various universities and institutions and, besides numerous articles and monographs in specialized magazines, has published, among others, the following titles: Transversales. Texto sobre los textos (Anagrama, Barcelona, 1977); La Metafísica. Preguntas sin respuesta y problemas sin solución (Montesinos, Barcelona, 1989; enlarged edition Pre-textos, Valencia, 2006); La Banalidad (Anagrama, Barcelona, 1989, augmented edition 2004); Deleuze. Vio­lentar el pensamiento (Cincel, Madrid, 1990); Sobre los Espacios. Pintar, escribir, pensar (del Serbal, Barcelona, 1991); Las formas de la Exterioridad (Pre-textos, Valencia, 1992); La intimidad (Pre-textos, Valencia, 1996, 2004); Estructuralismo y ciencias humanas (Akal, Madrid, 2001); Fragmentos de un libro anterior, Chair of Poetry and Aesthetics José Ángel Valente, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, 2004;  La regla del juego. Sobre la dificultad de aprender filosofía, (Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2004), which received the  Premio Nacional de Ensayo award, Esto no es música. Introducción al malestar en la cultura de masa (Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona,2007), and Nunca fue tan hermosa la basura (Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2010).

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