Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 087140480X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson 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. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham.
Author: Rollo May
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Psychiatry
Languages : en
Pages : 445
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Book Description
Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063290642
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 311
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Book Description
“Far more than a conventional novel. It is a meditation on life, on the erotic, on the nature of men and women and love . . . full of telling details, truths large and small, to which just about every reader will respond.” — People In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of two couples, a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing, and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine. This magnificent novel is a story of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, and encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.
Author: David Benatar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199549265
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. David Benatar presents a startling challenge to these assumptions. He argues that people systematically overestimate the quality of their life, and suffer quite serious harms by coming into existence.
Author: Theodore Ihejieto
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
ISBN: 1480954675
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 726
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Book Description
The Existence By: Theodore Ihejieto The Existence is a book of love and life that talks about the world as the existence of human beings, and tells human beings to understand that the world is the love and the life. It is a book of Planet Earth, which the Planet Earth gave to the author, because the author asked the Planet Earth for the book of the world. The author is a human being who lost faith in God and called on Planet Earth to do work and save human beings from evil and death in the world. This is a book of a human being who was challenged by evil and death in the world, and the human being called on his existence for help and protection. The author did not like to die in the world and told his existence that he did not want to die, because the author believed that Planet Earth has the power to save human beings in the world. The Existence is the faith, the hope, and the charity that God challenged human beings to find and tell the mountain of evil and death to move away from human beings.
Author: Oladele Daniel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781983162138
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 26
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Book Description
The book was written to the show how man existence cost and the importance of human existence, the weight he carry as a man. So he can put importance on his existence as a living.Every creature is perfectly made and not just exists.
Author: Joshua Harris Abbott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
Author: W.F. Vallicella
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401705887
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
The heart of philosophy is metaphysics, and at the heart of the heart lie two questions about existence. What is it for any contingent thing to exist? Why does any contingent thing exist? Call these the nature question and the ground question, respectively. The first concerns the nature of the existence of the contingent existent; the second concerns the ground of the contingent existent. Both questions are ancient, and yet perennial in their appeal; both have presided over the burial of so many of their would-be undertakers that it is a good induction that they will continue to do so. For some time now, the preferred style in addressing such questions has been deflationary when it has not been eliminativist. Ask Willard Quine what existence is, and you will hear that "Existence is what existential quantification expresses. "! Ask Bertrand Russell what it is for an individual to exist, and he will tell you that an individual can no more exist than it can be numerous: there 2 just is no such thing as the existence of individuals. And of course Russell's eliminativist answer implies that one cannot even ask, on pain of succumbing to the fallacy of complex question, why any contingent individual exists: if no individual exists, there can be no question why any individual exists. Not to mention Russell's modal corollary: 'contingent' and 'necessary' can only be said de dicto (of propositions) and not de re (of things).
Author: Doddigallu Naga Chandra Teja
Publisher: Doddigallu Naga Chandra Teja
ISBN: 9360391808
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 141
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Book Description
Each life is a distinct thread in the amazing fabric of human existence, each with its own narrative to tell. Like yours, my life is a tale waiting to be told, a collection of experiences, lessons, and emotions that have shaped who I am. As I begin this journey of self-discovery, I invite you to join me in exploring the "Chronicles of My Existence. “Rather than merely recounting events, my personal tale is an examination of the inner landscapes that have defined me. It's a journey through the winding roads of my mind and heart, where dreams are born, difficulties are overcome, and resilience is developed. On these pages, I shall provide details about my life. I’ll show you around my world, from the joys that have lit my journey to the trials that have tested my resolve. I tell my life narrative with a strong feeling of humility and genuineness. Because we truly connect with our soul through our honest emotions and unvarnished reality. This book is an attempt to go beyond the particular and into the universal, to communicate the universal human experiences that bind us all together. I strive to capture the essence of what it is to be human: to seek meaning, to overcome adversity, and to treasure the moments of grace that grace our lives through highs and lows, successes and losses.
Author: Noreen Khawaja
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640451X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
What was existentialism? At its heart, Noreen Khawaja argues, existentialism was an effort to translate Protestant piety into a secular philosophy. While there have been many attempts to define existentialism from within as a coherent philosophical program and even as a movement, Khawaja s book is the first study of existentialism from the standpoint of intellectual history and the first to look systematically at the role that Christianity played in the development of existential thought. Focusing on Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Khawaja illuminates the key moments in existentialism s reconstruction of Protestant piety within the confines of secular philosophy. Heidegger once described his work as an exercise in the piety of thinking. Khawaja s book shows the historical and systematic truth behind this metaphor. Notwithstanding Heidegger, thinking has not always been a pious act. But for a certain group of European intellectuals in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it became so. "The Religion of Existence "will appeal to scholars of modern Christianity, philosophers, and historians of European philosophy, as well as those engaged with the theoretical and historical problems of secular and post-secular modernity. "
