For years Peter Levine, a moral/political philosopher who teaches at Tufts University, has been a must-read for me for his musings on civic engagement, democracy, policy, history and philosophy. Today he celebrates 20 years of blogging with the release of “Cuttings: a book about happiness” that is a collection of his collected blog posts on “Happiness” which is so much more than that title implies. The book is a set of reflections on philosophical texts, religious scriptures, and poetry, Buried in the text is a little observation that I suspect says something about who he is:
So we have a model of the humane and sensitive educated person as one who has been
— Peter Levine, Cuttings: A book about happiness v1.0, p. 20
habituated by the reading of moving stories to be empathetic and thus to show mercy or
otherwise depart from harsh decisions.
I have never met this person in real life, but his character shines through his deep and considered blog posts, and this collection is a lovely gift to savour.
I hadn’t heard of Peter Levine but having downloaded his Cuttings I wish I had been following him from the beginning. The work he has curated into this book is stimulating and exciting to read, and even in the little browsing that I have done since downloading it has caused me to think deeply about a number of topics. Many thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Thank you so much, both Chris and Gordon!
– Peter