• 21.06.2021.
• Zagreb, HR

Costica Bradatan on life, death and philosophy

Costica Bradatan, American philosopher of Romanian origin, author of the book Dying for Ideas – The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers, will be a guest on Monday, June 28 at 6 pm in the City Library and Reading Room „Metel Ožegović" in Varaždin. A conversation on life, death and philosophy will be held with the translator of the book Dijana Bahtijari, and the conversation will be in English.
See you in Varaždin!

Human beings must have been dying ‛for a cause’ for as long as they have been around. They have died for God or for their fellow humans, for ideas or ideals, for things real or imaginary, reasonable or utopian. Of all the possible varieties of voluntary death, the book you’ve started to read is about philosophers who die for the sake of their philosophy. Dying such a death certainly does not lack irony: you pay with the most precious thing you’ve got (your own life) for what commonly passes as the least consequential activity. Dying for Ideas is not about making arguments. Indeed, at the core of it there lies a conviction that philosophy proper is not even about writing books. No doubt philosophy needs writing, and good writing can do it a great service. Yet, in relation to what philosophy ultimately is, writing is bound to remain something preliminary. For no matter how good philosophers are as writers, their philosophy does not lie in their writing, but elsewhere. In a certain sense, philosophy begins where writing ends. Writing is rehearsal, dress rehearsal at best, but not yet performance. Philosophy is performance.
- Costica Bradatan