A Philosophy of Walking

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Verso Books, Apr 8, 2014 - Philosophy - 240 pages
This “passionate affirmation of the simple life” explores how walking has influenced history’s greatest thinkers—from Henry David Thoreau and John Muir to Gandhi and Nietzsche (Observer)

“It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” —Nietzsche

In this French bestseller, leading thinker and philosopher Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B—the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble—and reveals what they say about us.

Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau’s eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.
 

Contents

Walking Is NotaSport
1
Am Such a Good WalkerNietzsche
11
Outside
31
The Passion for Escape Rimbaud
39
Solitudes
53
Silences
59
The Walkers Waking DreamsRousseau
65
Eternities
81
States of WellBeing
139
Melancholy WanderingNerval
147
A Daily OutingKant
153
Strolls
159
Public Gardens
169
The Urban Flåneur
175
Gravity
183
Elemental
189

Conquest of the WildernessThoreau
87
Energy
104
Regeneration and Presence
121
The Cynics Approach
129
Mystic and PoliticianGandhi
193
Repetition
207
Further Reading
219
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About the author (2014)

Frederic Gros is a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris XII and the Institute of Political Studies, Paris. He was the editor of the last lectures of Michel Foucault at the College de France. He has written books on psychiatry, law and war. He lives in Paris.

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