Author Description

A philosopher and avid surfer discusses his ideas about freedom, being, phenomenology, morality, epistemology, and the values of "leisure capitalism." "The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once declared that 'water skiing is the ideal limit of aquatic sports.' The avid surfer and lavishly credentialed academic philosopher Aaron James vigorously disagrees, and in Surfing with Sartre he expounds the thinking surfer's view of the matter, elucidating such philosophical categories as freedom, being, flow, phenomenology, morality, epistemology, and even the emerging values of what he terms 'leisure capitalism.' In developing his unique surfer-philosophical worldview, he draws from his own experience of surfing and from surf culture and lingo and engages with philosophers from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, noting many relevant details from their lives. In the process, he speaks to readers in search of personal and social meaning in our current anxious moment by way of doing real, authentic philosophy. In or out of the water."--Jacket.