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Books

A Philosophy of Boredom by Lars Svendsen

Mark Frankel finds Lars Svendsen’s book interesting psychology but boring philosophy.

Boredom has been described as “time’s invasion of your world system” by Joseph Brodsky, “a bestial and indefinable affliction” by Feodor Dostoevsky, and “a tame longing without any particular object” by Arthur Schopenhauer. In this earlier companion work to his book on Fear which I reviewed in Philosophy Now Issue 84, the Norwegian academic Lars Svendsen brings together observations from philosophy, literature, theology and popular culture in a playful but learned work on boredom, first published in English in 2005, now reprinted.

Iris Murdoch wrote that to do philosophy is to explore one’s own temperament yet at the same time to attempt to discover the truth. Philosophical truths are about what is true generally, not just what happens to be true for me at a moment in time. Murdoch also thought that philosophy – or at least moral philosophy – should be concerned with values such as the good and the beautiful.

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