Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Books

The Wisdom of Frugality by Emrys Westacott

Mark Waller finds out with Emrys Westacott that the simple life is not so simple after all.

A book about the pros and cons of frugal living might well be the sort of thing you’d come across in the self-help section at your local bookstore. The benefits of living simply, cutting out inessentials, using thrift and greater self-reliance to better manage our lives, stave off debt, quell the hunger for buying more and more stuff, live healthily and, while we’re at it, save the environment, are the regular ingredients of self-help books and videos. Down the ages, all sorts of mystics, gurus, sages and holy characters have also prescribed the frugal life. It’s long been the panacea for minds and bodies troubled by troubled times – and by and large, all times have seemed troubled to those experiencing them. In this book, Emrys Westacott, Professor of Philosophy at Alfred University, and occasional Philosophy Now contributor, cites plenty of examples of this aspect of the frugal message, but he locates his subject solidly in a philosophical tradition that goes back to ancient eras.

…