John Kaag has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 17 ratings. The most-rated is Hiking with Nietzsche.
American Philosophy
Summary
The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around. In American Philosophy, John Kaag - a disillusioned philosopher at sea in his marriage and career - stumbles upon a treasure trove of rare books on an old estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. The library includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As he begins to catalog and preserve these priceless books, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy - self-reliance, pragmatism, the transcendent - and sees them in a 21st-century context. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy. After studying under Harvard's philosophical four - William James, George Santayana, Josiah Royce, and George Herbert Palmer - he held the most prestigious chair at the university for the first three decades of the 20th century. And when his teachers eventually died, he collected the great books from their libraries (filled with marginalia) and combined them with his own rare volumes at his family's estate. And there they remained for nearly 80 years, a time capsule of American thought. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is an invigorating investigation of American pragmatism and the wisdom that underlies a meaningful life.
©2016 John Kaag (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Hiking with Nietzsche
Summary
A revelatory Alpine journey in the spirit of the great Romantic thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. Hiking with Nietzsche is a tale of two philosophical journeys - one made by John Kaag as an introspective young man of 19, the other 17 years later and in quite different circumstances: as a husband and father. His wife and small child in tow, Kaag sets off for the Swiss peaks above Sils-Maria, where Nietzsche routinely summered, and where he wrote his mysterious landmark work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Both journeys are made in search of the wisdom at the core of Nietzsche's philosophy, but they deliver him to radically different interpretations and, more crucially, revelations about the human condition. Just as Kaag's acclaimed debut, American Philosophy: A Love Story, seamlessly wove together his philosophical discoveries and his search for meaning, Hiking with Nietzsche is a fascinating exploration, not only of Nietzsche's ideals, but of how his experience of living relates to us as individuals in the 21st century. Bold, intimate, and rich with insight, Hiking with Nietzsche is about defeating complacency, balancing sanity and madness, and coming to grips with the unobtainable. As Kaag hikes alone or with his family, but always with Nietzsche, he recognizes that even slipping can be instructive. It is in the process of climbing, and through the inevitable missteps, that one has the chance, in Nietzsche's words, to "[B]ecome who you are".
©2018 John Kaag (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Sick Souls, Healthy Minds
Summary
From the celebrated author of American Philosophy: A Love Story and Hiking with Nietzsche, a compelling introduction to the life-affirming philosophy of William James In 1895, William James, the father of American philosophy, delivered a lecture entitled "Is Life Worth Living?" It was no theoretical question for James, who had contemplated suicide during an existential crisis as a young man a quarter century earlier. Indeed, as John Kaag writes, "James's entire philosophy, from beginning to end, was geared to save a life, his life"- and that's why it just might be able to save yours, too. Sick Souls, Healthy Minds is a compelling introduction to James's life and thought that shows why the founder of pragmatism and empirical psychology -and an inspiration for Alcoholics Anonymous - can still speak so directly and profoundly to anyone struggling to make a life worth living. Kaag tells how James's experiences as one of what he called the "sick-souled," those who think that life might be meaningless, drove him to articulate an ideal of "healthy-mindedness" - an attitude toward life that is open, active, and hopeful, but also realistic about its risks. In fact, all of James's pragmatism, resting on the idea that truth should be judged by its practical consequences for our lives, is a response to, and possible antidote for, crises of meaning that threaten to undo many of us at one time or another. Along the way, Kaag also movingly describes how his own life has been endlessly enriched by James. Eloquent, inspiring, and filled with insight, Sick Souls, Healthy Minds may be the smartest and most important self-help book you'll ever read.
©2020 John Kaag (P)2020 Recorded Books