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Author
Language
English
Description
It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest. Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson examines what makes human beings supremely different from all other species and posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way.
Author
Pub. Date
2011.
Language
English
Description
"The Most Human Human" is a provocative, exuberant, and profound exploration of the ways in which computers are reshaping our ideas of what it means to be human. Its starting point is the annual Turing Test, which pits artificial intelligence programs against people to determine if computers can "think.
Author
Language
English
Description
Zeldin studies the problems of modern society in light of demonstrating how individuals pay attention to, or ignore, the experience of previous generations and cultures. Some of his examples are how people have acquired immunity to loneliness, how older fears give rise to new fears, and why people choose a way of life and what they do when it does not wholly satisfy them.
Author
Publisher
Metropolitan Books
Pub. Date
2007.
Language
English
Description
What do we really know? What are we in relation to the world around us? Playwright and novelist Frayn takes on the great questions of his career--and of our lives. Humankind, scientists agree, is an insignificant speck in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? Would there be numbers if there were no one to count them? With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Journalist "explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes relationships." She claims that "error is both a given and a gift -- one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves."
Author
Publisher
Tyndale House Publishers
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
"In Born to Wonder, Alister McGrath, a prolific Oxford scholar, scientist, and theologian, explores the deepest mystery at the heart of life itself. Life is a gift. We never asked to be born. Yet here we are, living in this strange world of space and time, trying to work out what it's all about before the darkness closes in and extinguishes us. We are adrift on a misty, grey sea of ignorance, seeking a sun-kissed island of certainty, on which we might...
14) What is man?
Author
Series
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Pub. Date
1996.
Language
English
Description
A dialogue between a Young Man and an Old Man regarding the nature of man. It involves ideas of destiny and free will, as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserts that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The Young Man objects, and asks him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position.
Author
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
What makes for a good life, or a beautiful one, or, perhaps most important, a meaningful one? Throughout history most of us have looked to our faith, our relationships, or our deeds for the answer. But in A Significant Life, philosopher Todd May offers an exhilarating new way of thinking about these questions, one deeply attuned to life as it actually is: a work in progress, a journey -- and often a narrative. Offering moving accounts of his own life...
Author
Publisher
W. Morrow
Pub. Date
2000.
Language
English
Description
The sequel to Duane Elgin's bestselling classic Voluntary Simplicity, which changed the lives of thousands and was called the "bible" of the simplicity movement by the Wall Street Journal, Promise Ahead looks beneath the headlines to reveal the deeper currents now changing our lives.
Elgin sees two powerful sets of trends converging in the coming decades. The first set he calls "adversity trends." These include
1. Global climate changes that...
17) The web of meaning: integrating science and traditional wisdom to find our place in the universe
Author
Publisher
New Society Publishers
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
"As our civilization careens toward climate breakdown, ecological destruction, and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. The dominant worldview of disconnection, which tells us we are split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world, has been invalidated by modern science. Award-winning author, Jeremy Lent, investigates humanity's age-old questions -- Who am I? Why am I? How should...
Author
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"In being me, a philosopher reflects in everyday language on what it is like to be a person, arriving at unexpected conclusions about the self and its future, time and mortality, free will and personal efficacy, regret and love. These topics are explored in brief sections titled "Wanting to go on", "Running out of time", "Regretting what might have been", "Aspiring to Authorship", "Making things happen", and "Wanting to be loved". Written in the first...
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