In this deeply considered meditation on ageing in Western culture, Jan Baars argues that, in today's world, living longer does not necessarily mean living better. He contends that there has been an overall loss of respect for ageing, to the point that understanding and ''dealing with'' ageing people has become a process focused on the decline of potential and the advance of disease rather than on the accumulation of wisdom and the creation of new skills. To make his case, Baars compares and contrasts the works of such modern-era thinkers as Foucault, Heidigger, and Husserl with the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Cicero, and other Ancient and Stoic philosophers. He shows how people in the classical periodless able to control health hazardshad a far better sense of the provisional nature of living, which led to a philosophical and religious emphasis on cultivating the art of living and the idea of wisdom. This is not to say that modern society's assessments of ageing are insignificant, but they do need to balance an emphasis on the measuring of age with the concept of ''living in time.'' Gerontologists, philosophers, and students will find Baars' discussion to be a powerful, perceptive conversation-starter.
Acknowledgments Introduction The Chronocratic Emperor Has No Clothes Overview 1. Chronometric Regimes: The Life Course, Aging, and Time Introduction 1.1. Historical Backgrounds of the Chronometric Life Course A Biographical Sandglass Age in Social Legislation Late Modern Systemic Worlds and Life Worlds 1.2. Chronometric Life Courses: Beyond Standardization and De-standardization The Continuing Importance of Chronometric Age Chronometric Regimes 1.3. Care and Its Chronometric Regimes Chronometric Care and Its Acceleration Time-efficient Lives 1.4. Chronometric Aging: Exactly Arbitrary Intrinsic Time and Intrinsic Malleability The Heisenberg Principle of Aging Conclusions 2. Exclusion, Activism, and Eternal Youth Introduction 2.1. From Natural Passivity to Activating Activities for Older People From ""Idleness with Dignity"" to Being as Being Busy Stay Active: ""Use It or Lose It"" 2.2. The Emergence of an Anti-aging Culture ""Don't Call 'em Old, Call 'em Consumers!"" ""Take Years Off Your Looks and Add Them to Your Life"" 2.3. The Much-desired Long and Invulnerable Life: Magic and Magic Technology A Fundamental Vulnerability Conclusions 3. A Passion for Wisdom and the Emergence of an Art of Aging Introduction 3.1. Early Greek Thought about the Life Course Solon's Untraditional Views 3.2. The Search for Wisdom and the Emergence of an Art of Life Plato's Academy Aristotle's Lyceum The Garden of Epicurus The Stoics Wisdom, Aging, and Old Age 3.3. Cicero and the Stoic Art of Living in Old Age Cicero Cato Maior de Senectute: On Old Age Cicero's Defense of Old Age against Four Complaints A Statesman's View of Old Age Conclusions 4. Modern Science, the Discovery of a Personal History,and Aging Authentically Introduction 4.1. Aging in a World of Meaningful Repetition 4.2. (Ir)reversible Time and the Senescing of Organisms Does Nature Repeat Itself Eternally? Nature Changes and Time Is Irreversible Senescing, Irreversible Time, and the Organism 4.3. The Idealization of Science and the Epistemological Reduction of Time 4.4. The Struggle for a Fuller Experience of Time Augustine: A Threefold Present Bergson: Time as Creativity Husserl: The Phenomenological Experience of Time Heidegger: Authentic Temporal Being in the Face of Death Time Is Lived in Constitutive Life Worlds Conclusions 5. Aging and Narrative Identities Introduction 5.1. Embedding Aging in Narratives Narratives and Narrative Identity Narrative Integration as a ""Good Life"" Life Plans ""Real Stories"" and Textual Issues 5.2. Modest Necessity of Stories Changes, Themes, and Phases Stories: Intertwining the Past, the Present, and the Future Institutional Narrative Practices Narratives if the Life World and the Systemic World Conclusions 6. PerspectivesToward an Art of Aging Introduction 6.1. Interhuman Vulnerability and the Dignity of ""Unsuccessful"" Aging The Vulnerability of the Interhuman Condition Aging and Increasing Vulnerability The Dignity of ""Unsuccessful"" Aging Autonomy and Structural Paternalism 6.2. Toward an Art of Aging: Beyond Conventional Wisdom Older and Wiser? 6.3. Toward an Art of Aging: Living in Different Times A Multi-layered Present Kairos: A Sensitivity for Changing Temporal Qualities Activism and Receptivity Memories Have Their Own Times Actions Constitute Time Life Events and Life's Periods The Times of Life Are Finite A Last Question about the Beginning of Time 6.4. Toward an Art of Aging: Beyond Longer Lives Aging as Finitization: A Deepening of Unique Lives Unique Lives: Empirical and Ethical Contingent and Existential Limitations Why Do We Age? How Can Aging Be Meaningful? Is It Good to Live Longer? References Index
""Jan Baars is the premier philosopher of aging, working in Europe and the United States today. Actually, to call him a philosopher of aging is to diminish the range of his thought and his accomplishments.""
