We recently caught up with Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin, the editors of Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone, released last year. We caught up with them recently and asked them a few questions about their editorial approach, and sound out why cycling is surprisingly complex and philosophically rich.
Why did you decide to edit a book on cycling and philosophy?
A colleague wrote that Ilundáin had found his calling with this project. But he’d rather say the book and the calling found him serendipitously when he saw the series editor Fritz Allhoff’s call for proposals. Mike Austin was first to sprint for it and get the nod, but graciously offered to edit this as a tandem. It made sense because our combined experience meant we would steer the project in the right direction (and we think it has covered philosophically fascinating terrain).
What are some of the central concerns of the book, and why are they important?
One of our main goals was to capture the experiential and philosophical richness that cycling embodies. It is a seemingly simple activity that offers a surprisingly complex nature when examined philosophically. Another concern was to use the appeal of cycling—cyclists are a very passionate group of people—to stimulate philosophical and intellectual thinking in a way that was fun yet rigorous. As Plato said, we never learn Continue reading “Interview: Cycling and Philosophy”
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