Leisure: The Basis of Culture

One of the most important philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture is more significant, even more crucial, today than it was when it first appeared more than fifty years ago. This edition also includes his work The Philosophical Act. Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper shows that the Greeks and medieval Europeans, understood the great value and importance of leisure. He also points out that religion can be born only in leisure -- a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves.

• On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life (Hackett Classics)
• Notes Towards a Definition of Culture
• In Tune With The World
• Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation
• Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, 4th Ed.
• Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics: and the Letter to Marcus Herz, February 1772 (Hackett Classics)
• Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Hackett Classics)
• The Four Cardinal Virtues
• How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
• Robinson Crusoe