The Human Person and a Culture of Freedom


Book Description

"Collection of essays on the metaphysical underpinnings of intellectual and individual freedom within a civic-political order or cultural milieu"--Provided by publisher.




Love As Human Freedom


Book Description

Rather than see love as a natural form of affection, Love As Human Freedom sees love as a practice that changes over time through which new social realities are brought into being. Love brings about, and helps us to explain, immense social-historical shifts—from the rise of feminism and the emergence of bourgeois family life, to the struggles for abortion rights and birth control and the erosion of a gender-based division of labor. Drawing on Hegel, Paul A. Kottman argues that love generates and explains expanded possibilities for freely lived lives. Through keen interpretations of the best known philosophical and literary depictions of its topic—including Shakespeare, Plato, Nietzsche, Ovid, Flaubert, and Tolstoy—his book treats love as a fundamental way that we humans make sense of temporal change, especially the inevitability of death and the propagation of life.




Robert Spaemann's Philosophy of the Human Person


Book Description

An analysis of the most important features of Robert Spaemann's philosophy. Holger Zaborowski demonstrates the importance of Spaemann's contribution to a number of contemporary debates in philosophy and theology and explains the unity of his thought.




Spinoza on Human Freedom


Book Description

Spinoza was one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment, but his often obscure metaphysics makes it difficult to understand the ultimate message of his philosophy. Although he regarded freedom as the fundamental goal of his ethics and politics, his theory of freedom has not received sustained, comprehensive treatment. Spinoza holds that we attain freedom by governing ourselves according to practical principles, which express many of our deepest moral commitments. Matthew J. Kisner focuses on this theory and presents an alternative picture of the ethical project driving Spinoza's philosophical system. His study of the neglected practical philosophy provides an accessible and concrete picture of what it means to live as Spinoza's ethics envisioned.




The Irreducibility of the Human Person


Book Description

"This book presents a philosophical portrait of human persons that depicts each way in which we are irreducible, with the goal of guiding the reader to perceive, wonder at, and love all the unique features of human persons. It builds this portrait by showing how claims from many strands of the Catholic tradition can be synthesized. These strands include Thomism, Scotism, phenomenology, personalism, nouvelle théologie, analytic philosophy, and Greek and Russian thought. The book focuses on how these traditions' claims are grounded in experience and on how they help us to perceive irreducible features of persons. This book also explores irreducible features of our subjectivity, senses, intellect, freedom, and affections, and of our souls, bodies, and activities"--




Freedom of Being Human


Book Description

The story incorporates the essence of Belief & Non belief. It explores the psychology of human experience, thinking & behavior. It contemplates whether ethics, morality, revenge, hate, are relative terms. More importantly, it speaks about love. It depicts the constant struggle of few individuals. The clash of their ideologies & their love and hate towards each other. Each one of them seek satisfaction through the fulfillment of their motives. The story explores the human capability to make truly free and uncorrupted choices, which are not influenced by experiences, conditioning or even destiny. It highlights various facets of our existence which has baffled the greatest of minds since the dawn of civilization. Further, it encourages the readers to derive their own conclusions for it instills a sense of appreciation in them before they could jump to the criteria of success, failure or judgment. Every human life is uniquely different and thus must be understood by different frames of reference. In the end, I would say the book carries a simple message : "The dignity is not in being born as a human, but in relishing the potential of what one can become as a human and this is where each one of us individually express the freedom of being human”




Animal Choice and Human Freedom


Book Description

In Animal Choice and Human Freedom: On the Genealogy of Self-Determined Action, Michael Yudanin argues that describing freedom conceptually is impossible without explaining how it can exist in the world. Yudanin develops an account of freedom’s instantiation in biological agents and provides several prerequisites that are necessary for its exercise. He demonstrates that freedom is linked to the form of life and distinguishes between choice in non-verbal animals and human freedom, where the latter is enabled by the development of language and thus possesses a distinct character. Following this descriptive account, Yudanin explores freedom’s evolutionary history, explaining how it developed in the course of the evolution of species.




Freedom of the Human Person


Book Description

Freedom is the key issue for both Karol Wojtyla and Immanuel Kant that connects the Polish with the German philosopher. This analysis aims to show the importance of Kant's ethics in the work of Karol Wojtyla. Kant's paradigm shift in the anthropological thought was revolutionary. The categorical imperative obliges each person to act morally and thus elevates them. It is the foundation of human dignity, not only for Kant but also for Wojtyla. Who is man? Is man free? Or is materialistic man determined and arrested in immanence? What should man do? Man is gifted with freedom. He is a person because he has the capacity to act. Wojtyla and Kant put special emphasis on a person's power of selfdetermination that reveals itself through the experience as a freely acting person. The realisation of the personal norm - the categorical imperative - was defined by both thinkers as a fulfilment of freedom. Freedom shall be fulfilled in the responsible act, which reveals the person's power of love.







A Philosophy of Freedom


Book Description

Freedom of speech, religion, choice, will—humans have fought, and continue to fight, for all of these. But what is human freedom really? Taking a broad approach across metaphysics, politics, and ethics, Lars Svendsen explores this question in his engaging book, while also looking at the threats freedom faces today. Though our behaviors, thoughts, and actions are restricted by social and legal rules, deadlines, and burdens, Svendsen argues that the fundamental requirement for living a human life is the ability to be free. A Philosophy of Freedom questions how we can successfully create meaningful lives when we are estranged from the very concept of freedom. Svendsen tackles such issues as the nature of free agency and the possibility of freedom in a universe governed by natural laws. He concludes that the true definition of personal freedom is first and foremost the liberty to devote yourself to what really matters to you—to realize the true value of the life you are living. Drawing on the fascinating debates around the possibility of freedom and its limits within society, this comprehensive investigation provides an accessible and insightful overview that will appeal to academics and general readers alike.