“Here, at last, is a book about what happiness really means, and why it often eludes us in our stressed-out, always-on lives.”
—Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive

A young philosopher and Guinness World Record holder in pull-ups argues that the key to happiness is not goal-driven striving but forging a life that integrates self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature.

What is the meaning of the good life? In this strikingly original book, Adam Adatto Sandel draws on ancient and modern thinkers and on two seemingly disparate pursuits of his own, philosophy and fitness, to offer a surprising answer to this age-old human question.

Sandel argues that finding fulfillment is not about attaining happiness, conceived as a state of mind, or even about accomplishing one’s greatest goals. Instead, true happiness comes from immersing oneself in activity that is intrinsically rewarding. The source of meaning, he suggests, derives from the integrity or “wholeness” of self that we forge throughout the journey of life.

At the heart of Sandel’s account of life as a journey are three virtues that get displaced and distorted by our goal-oriented striving: self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature. Sandel offers illuminating and counterintuitive accounts of these virtues, revealing how they are essential to a happiness that lasts.

To illustrate the struggle of living up to these virtues, Sandel looks to literature, film, and television, and also to his own commitments and adventures. A focal point of his personal narrative is a passion that, at first glance, is as narrow a goal-oriented pursuit as one can imagine: training to set the Guinness World Record for Most Pull-Ups in One Minute. Drawing on his own experiences, Sandel makes philosophy accessible for readers who, in their own infinitely various ways, struggle with the tension between goal-oriented striving and the embrace of life as a journey.

A crucial moment came in the developing split between Anglo-American and continental European philosophers when G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell rebelled against the “Hegelianism” of their teachers and inaugurated the tradition of “analytic” philosophy. In this new book, John McDowell builds on his much discussed Mind and World—one of the most highly regarded books in contemporary philosophy. McDowell, who has long commanded attention for his fresh approach to issues in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind, shocked some mainstream analytic philosophers in Mind and World by drawing inspiration not only from analytic philosophers but also from continental philosophers, most notably Hegel.

McDowell argues that the roots of some problems plaguing contemporary philosophy can be found in issues that were first discerned by Kant, and that the best way to get a handle on them is to follow those issues as they are reshaped in the writings of Hegel and Sellars. Having the World in View will be a decisive further step toward healing the divisions in contemporary philosophy, by showing how central methods of the two traditions remain deeply entangled and by revealing how philosophers in both camps might still learn from each other.