Philosophy as a way of life survived among non-academic mavericks like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

Evidence

As the centuries went by, philosophy increasingly became a profession conducted in academies or universities, by scholars who sometimes prided themselves on their discipline’s exquisite uselessness. Yet the tradition of philosophy as a way of life continued in a sort of shadow-line alongside this, often conducted by mavericks who had slipped through the gaps in traditional universities. Two such misfits in the nineteenth century had a particularly strong influence on the later existentialists: Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Neither was an academic philosopher: Kierkegaard had no university career, and Nietzsche was a professor of Greek and Roman philology who had to retire because of ill health. Both were individualists, and both were contrarians by nature, dedicated to making people uncomfortable. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 56

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s stated interest in how existentialism relates to prior philosophical tradition; echoes the classical ‘philosophy as a way of life’ theme from Hadot. — connects to: Philosophy as a way of life survived as a shadow tradition beside academic philosophy — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 56; Existentialism holds that philosophy grows out of concrete lived experience — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 54; Nietzsche and Kierkegaard founded existentialism as lived philosophy of choice and anguish — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 66 (+7 more)
• SEED: A possible essay angle: the decline of philosophy as a life-practice and its continued existence among academic outsiders.

Broader Connections

• Philosophy as a way of life survived as a shadow tradition beside academic philosophy #corroborates (0.95) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 56
• Nietzsche and Kierkegaard founded existentialism as lived philosophy of choice and anguish #expands (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 66
• Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were deliberately provocative contrarian precursors to existentialism #exemplifies (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 56
• Existentialism holds that philosophy grows out of concrete lived experience #expands (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 54
• Nietzsche and Kierkegaard defined existence as choice, action and self-assertion #expands (0.75)
• Adorno read Kierkegaard’s subjectivism as a covert identity theory. #complicates (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 259
• Beauvoir’s system-based definition of philosophy would exclude Kierkegaard and Nietzsche #qualifies (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 34
• Post-structuralist philosophy rejected lived experience and active human subjects #contradicts (0.70) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 88
• Adorno reconceived philosophy as the teaching of the correct life rather than epistemology #contradicts (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 835