Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by James Miller

Even if part of the fault lies with the abstruseness favored by some of its practitioners, the decline in respect for philosophy during the last century leaves an unfortunate gap in social discourse. We live in times when practicality and productivity are valued above all else, and the search for meaning is often relegated to fundamentalism of a religious or scientific persuasion. Using a dozen pre-20th-century philosophers as his starting point, James Miller of the New School for Social Research paints an ambivalent panorama of the philosophical quest for moral integrity and a life well led. And yet, the effort to know yourself and to search for wisdom, "an unending quest, with no firm goal and no certain reward," is an enriching aspect of the human experience. To never ask the big questions is to live a small life.