Kieran Setiya teaches philosophy at MIT, working mainly in ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. Beyond his academic work, his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and The New York Times.
We caught up with Kieran about his brilliant, thoughtful new book, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, which advises us to stop striving for our ‘best life’ and think instead about how to live well.
With chapters on infirmity, loneliness, grief, failure, injustice, the absurd, and hope, Kieran demonstrates how it is the process of philosophical contemplation, not just the content of it, that can help us navigate adversity.