One of the most importan philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture is more significant, even more crucial, today than it was when it first appeared fifty years ago. Pieper shows that the Greeks understood and valued leisure, as did the medieval Europeans. He points out that religion can be born only in leisure - a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. He maintains that our bourgeois world of total labour has vanquished leisure, and issues as startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we subsitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture - and ourselves. These astonishing essays contradict all our pragmatic and puritanical conceptions about labour and leisure; Josef Peiper demolishes the twentieth century cult of "work" as he predicts ist destructive consequences.
- ISBN10 1890318353
- ISBN13 9781890318352
- Publish Date 15 November 1998
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint St Augustine's Press
- Edition Anniversary edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 176
- Language English