PWL Collective Projects
Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life: An Ancient Model, A Contemporary Approach
FCT Grant | 2023-25 | NOVA University of Lisbon | € 49 969,95
PI: Marta Faustino
The project explored the value of PWL for reinterpreting the history of philosophy and reshaping its teaching, mapping diverse philosophical ways of life across Western and non-Western traditions and developing tools to apply PWL in education and outreach of philosophy. Over its two-year duration, the project organized an online seminar, two international conferences and produced several publications, among which the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy as a Way of Life (forthcoming).
Reinventing Philosophy as a Way of Life
ARC Grant | 2014-19 | Monash / Deakin University | $153,375.00
PI: Michael Ure & Matthew Sharpe
The core aim of the project was to examine modern re-inventions of the classical ideal of philosophy as a way of life. It investigated the reanimation of this idea in post-Kantian philosophy, including well-known figures such as Nietzsche but also neglected figures such as Jean-Marie Guyau. The project main outcome was Bloomsbury’s book series Reinventing Philosophy as a Way of Life (editors: K. Ansell-Pearson, M. Sharpe & M. Ure), and several important publications, including Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions & Directions (Bloomsbury, 20021), by Matthew Sharpe & Michael Ure.
PWL Individual Projects
Spiritual Exercises: Conversion and the Theology of the Everyday Life in the Construction and Influence of the First Global Manual of Modern Spirituality
FCT PhD grant | Gianfranco Ferraro | Un. Aberta
Within the paradigm of a long-duration history of forms of spirituality, the project explores the ancient roots and modern influence of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, showing—through the interpretations of Hadot and Foucault—the lines of continuity that connect, as well as the fractures that separate, the philosophical forms of spirituality of the ancient and medieval world from those that contribute to the codification of St. Ignatius’s method, and the influences this method exerts on modern religious and philosophical ways of life.
James Joyce: The Unfolding Art of Flourishing and Decay
Book project | Bartholomew Ryan | OUP
This book argues that James Joyce is a special kind of philosophical writer working within the medium and limits of literature to address the question of how to live a flourishing life. The book navigates seven chapters which address the themes of Body, Language, Doubt, Middle, Darkness, Technology, and Six Virtues on How to Live.
Gymnastics of the Spirit. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Philosophy as a Way of Life
Book project | Laura Macor | Brill
This book offers a new reading of the work of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781), a prominent figure of the German Enlightenment and a staunch supporter of autonomous thinking, free speech, and religious toleration. In particular, this book aims to vindicate Lessing’s anything but secure status as a philosopher by arguing that he endorsed the ancient paradigm of philosophy as an existential training, made it the grounding feature of his intellectual activity, and hence belongs to the tradition of PWL.
Seneca at School: Stoic Influences on the Revival of ‘Intellectual Happiness’ in XIV-century Italy
FCT Individual grant (CEEC) | Matteo Stettler | NOVA University of Lisbon
This project shows that the medieval revival of Aristotle’s ideal of intellectual happiness among XIII–XIV-century Parisian and Bolognese masters of the arts was shaped not only by Arabic and Byzantine sources but also by Stoic authors like Cicero and Seneca. By tracing Stoic influences in key commentaries and disputed questions, it aims to highlight the diversity of sources that contributed to the re-emergence of the ancient conception of “philosophy as a way of life” in medieval universities.
The Return of Philosophy as a Way of Life. Comparative Analysis of Five Conceptions of Philosophy in Antiquity
FAAS Mid-Career Research Grant | Annie Larivée | FASS, Carleton University
The long-term objective of this research program is to clarify the conditions under which philosophy can meaningfully be understood today as a way of life. As a first step toward this broader aim, the current project undertakes a phase of conceptual clarification, carefully distinguishing and comparing five ancient descriptions of philosophy: philosophy as a way of life, as an art of living, as therapy, as care for the self or soul, and as theoria.
On the Interface Between Philosophy and the Essay: Practices of Self-Narration and Self-Writing
Individual grant | Kurt Borg | University of Malta
This research explores the interface between philosophy and the essay by considering how practices of self-narration and self-writing are central to both activities. It highlights philosophical activity as a practice of self-(trans)formation, and foregrounds the philosophical stakes of self-narration in essayistic writing. It proposes that this interface enables analytical perspectives that approach philosophy essayistically and essayism philosophically, presenting novel (postcritical) approaches to philosophers/essayists such as Montaigne, Nietzsche, Foucault, Judith Butler, Zadie Smith and Leslie Jamison.
The Other Medieval Philosophy in Latin Europe
Book project | John Marenbon | Princeton University Press
A study of philosophy outside the universities in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, to be published by Princeton University Press in 2027.
African Philosophy and Philosophical Counselling: Groundwork for Reciprocal Theory and Practice
Book project | Jaco Louw | Bloomsbury
Moving beyond Western-centric models, this book establishes African philosophical counselling as a rooted way of life. Combining Tsenay Serequeberhan’s radical African hermeneutics and Jonathan Chimakonam’s conversational philosophy, it redefines the philosophical counsellor as a ‘multiply placed’ practitioner of radical, transformative dialogues.
In Search for the Real Ground: Kant and the Foundations of a Philosophical Project Beyond German Idealism
Ministero dell’università e della ricerca (MUR) | Lucas Nascimento Machado | University of Verona
In this project, we investigate the search for a real ground of knowledge (as opposed to a merely formal one) in German Idealism, exploring the ramifications of this project in contemporary philosophy. Although the project does not focus directly on PWL, it has very close ties with it, since the need for the search of a ground of knowledge that is not merely discursive is closely tied to the way PWL as an understanding of philosophy surfaces in the authors of Classical German Philosophy.
”Don’t Take My Word For It”: The Dynamics of Authority in Ancient Philosophy, Then and Now
Individual grant | Marc-Antoine Gavray | WelChange Funding, FRS-FNRS, Belgium
This project proposes to investigate the striking parallels between the structure of the reception and recuperation of Ancient philosophy in the Post-Hellenistic and Imperial periods and that at the present day.
Collective Volume on Attention
Book project | Laura Cremonesi & Simone D’Agostino (promoted by the PWL research group at the Gregorian University) | Brill
The collective volume investigates attention as a pivotal concept for understanding subjectivity, knowledge, ethics, and spiritual life across the history of philosophy. From ancient Stoicism and late antique Christianity to medieval scholasticism, early modern philosophy and Enlightenment, the chapters show how attentional practices structure spiritual exercises, freedom, and epistemic virtues. Further studies on modern psychology, phenomenology, and twentieth‑century religious and aesthetic thought present attention as inner vigilance, decreation, and the indispensable condition of interpretation.