Practice in Still Life: Fragments, Essays, and Lectures

Description

Practice in Still Life explores how philosophical and contemplative traditions transform our perception and understanding of reality. Through a series of fragments, essays, and lectures, these pieces show how practice fundamentally shapes our way of being in the world and the aesthetic nature of perception itself. By studying the works of saints, mystics, monastics, and philosophers, A.E. Robbert demonstrates how different modes of attention—both intellectual investigation and contemplative practice—serve as complementary vehicles for philosophical illumination.

Central to this work is how askēsis (spiritual exercise) mediates and joins us together with the reality we bring to presence through practice. The ideas and figures treated herein are varied in senses at once historical, disciplinary, and existential, dealing in themes from phenomenology, philosophy, and religion alike. Equal parts practical and metaphysical, first personal and theological, they engage questions of perception and agency but also transcendence and immanence. Written for thoughtful readers in academia and beyond, these pieces illustrate how philosophical practice remains essential today for developing deeper ways of perceiving and engaging with the world and what lies within and beyond it.

Overview

• 16 essays exploring the link between practice and perception
• Structured progressively from fragments to essays to lectures
• Includes a glossary of Greek and Latin philosophical terms with etymologies
• Explores how contemplation (theōria) and spiritual exercise (askēsis) shape perception and our engagement with reality
• Integrates phenomenological, philosophical, and theological perspectives
• Argues for a practice-oriented defense of the humanities in the 21st century
• Draws from mystics (Dionysius the Areopagite, author of The Cloud of Unknowing), saints (Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Aquinas), philosophers (Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger), modern scholars (William Desmond, Charles Taylor, Pierre Hadot, Simone Kotva), contemplatives (Hugh of St. Victor, Evagrius Ponticus, Simone Weil, Nishitani Keiji), and historians (Mary Carruthers)