A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings PDF full book. Access full book title A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings by Michael Ruse. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108820433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Get Book Here
Book Description
Considers why humans consider themselves superior to all other animals, and whether they are right to do so.
Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108820433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Get Book Here
Book Description
Considers why humans consider themselves superior to all other animals, and whether they are right to do so.
Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108904750
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Get Book Here
Book Description
Why do we think ourselves superior to all other animals? Are we right to think so? In this book, Michael Ruse explores these questions in religion, science and philosophy. Some people think that the world is an organism - and that humans, as its highest part, have a natural value (this view appeals particularly to people of religion). Others think that the world is a machine - and that we therefore have responsibility for making our own value judgements (including judgements about ourselves). Ruse provides a compelling analysis of these two rival views and the age-old conflict between them. In a wide-ranging and fascinating discussion, he draws on Darwinism and existentialism to argue that only the view that the world is a machine does justice to our humanity. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.
Author: Raymond Geuss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108930611
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Get Book Here
Book Description
A survey on the nature of work, integrating conceptual analysis, historical reflection, autobiography and social commentary.
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108909566
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Get Book Here
Book Description
What should our buildings look like? Or is their usability more important than their appearance? Paul Guyer argues that the fundamental goals of architecture first identified by the Roman architect Marcus Pollio Vitruvius - good construction, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - have remained valid despite constant changes in human activities, building materials and technologies, as well as in artistic styles and cultures. Guyer discusses philosophers and architects throughout history, including Alberti, Kant, Ruskin, Wright, and Loos, and surveys the ways in which their ideas are brought to life in buildings across the world. He also considers the works and words of contemporary architects including Annabelle Selldorf, Herzog and de Meuron, and Steven Holl, and shows that - despite changing times and fashions - good architecture continues to be something worth striving for. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.
Author: Thomas Nagel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199919755
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 141
Get Book Here
Book Description
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521117933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Get Book Here
Book Description
Provides a unique discussion of human evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, covering such issues as religion, race and gender.
Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190933232
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Get Book Here
Book Description
Does human life have any meaning? Does the question even make sense today? For centuries, the question of the meaning or purpose of human life was assumed by scholars and theologians to have a religious answer: life has meaning because humans were made in the image of a good god. In the 19th century, however, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution changed everything-and the human organism was seen to be more machine than spirit. Ever since, with the rise of science and decline of religious belief, there has been growing interest - and growing doubt - about whether human life really does have meaning. If it does, where might we find it? The historian and philosopher of science Michael Ruse investigates this question, and wonders whether we can find a new meaning to life within Darwinian views of human nature. If God no longer exists-or if God no longer cares-rather than promoting a bleak nihilism, many Darwinians think we can convert Darwin into a form of secular humanism. Ruse explains that, in a tradition going back to the time of Darwin himself, and represented today by the evolutionist E. O. Wilson, evolution is seen as progress -- "from monad to man" - and that positive meaning is found in continuing and supporting this upwards path of life. In A Meaning to Life, Michael Ruse argues that this is a false turn, and there is no real progress in the evolutionary process. Rather, meaning in the Darwinian age can be found if we turn to a kind of Darwinian existentialism, seeing our evolved human nature as the source of all meaning, both in the intellectual and social worlds. Ruse argues that it is only by accepting our true nature - evolved over millennia - that humankind can truly find what is meaningful.
Author: Stephen Mumford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108994938
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Get Book Here
Book Description
Introduces the reader to a host of philosophical topics found in sport, exploring the place of sport in our lives.
Author: Zena Hitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108999158
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Get Book Here
Book Description
What is happiness? Does life have a meaning? If so, is that meaning available in an ordinary life? The philosopher Zena Hitz confronted these questions head-on when she spent several years living in a Christian religious community. Religious life -- the communal life chosen by monks, nuns, friars, and hermits -- has been a part of global Christianity since earliest times, but many of us struggle to understand what could drive a person to renounce wealth, sex, children, and ambition to live a life of prayer and sacrifice. Hitz's lively and accessible book explores questions about faith, sacrifice, asceticism and happiness through philosophy, stories, and examples from religious life. Drawing on personal experience as well as film, literature, history, biography, and theology, it demystifies an important element of contemporary culture, and provides a picture of human flourishing and happiness which challenges and enriches modern-day life.
Author: Stephen Mumford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108999123
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Get Book Here
Book Description
Why is sport so important among participants and spectators when its goals seem so pointless? Stephen Mumford's book introduces the reader to a host of philosophical topics found in sport, and argues that sports activities reflect diverse human experiences - including important values that we continue to contest. The author explores physicality, competition, how sport is best defined, ethics in sport, and issues of inclusion such as disability sports, the gender divide, and transgender athletes. His book is written for anyone who is thoughtful, a sports enthusiast, or both, and will deepen our understanding of sport and its place in our lives. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.
