The Human Condition - Hardcover

Kekes, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199588880 ISBN 13: 9780199588886

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Synopsis

The Human Condition is a response to the growing disenchantment in the Western world with contemporary life. John Kekes provides rationally justified answers to questions about the meaning of life, the basis of morality, the contingencies of human lives, the prevalence of evil, the nature and extent of human responsibility, and the sources of values we prize. He offers a realistic view of the human condition that rejects both facile optimism and gloomy pessimism; acknowledges that we are vulnerable to contingencies we cannot fully control; defends a humanistic understanding of our condition; recognizes that the values worth pursuing are plural, often conflicting, and that there are many reasonable conceptions of well-being. Kekes emphasizes the importance of facing the fact that man's inhumanity to man is widespread. He rejects as simple-minded both the view that human nature is basically good and that it is basically bad, and argues that our well-being depends on coping with the complex truth that human nature is basically complicated. Finally, Kekes argues that the scheme of things is indifferent to our fortunes and that we can rely only on our own resources to make what we can of our lives.

About this title

About the Author

John Kekes has been Research Professor at the State University of New York and Visiting Professor in Canada, Estonia, Hungary, Portugal, and Singapore. He has received Fellowships from the Canada Council, the State University of New York, and the Woodrow Wilson, Rockefeller, and Earhart Foundations. He is the author of seventeen books and many articles on moral and political thought.

Review

[a] rich and comprehensive investigation of the human condition. I can recommend his book to anyone who is interested in any of the many traditional philosophical problems which he tackles during that investigation. He always has something original and controversial to say. * Jussi Suikkanen, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0199588880
• ISBN 13: 9780199588886
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272