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Cover

Philosophy and the Human Condition

An Anthology

Brian R. Clack and Tyler Hower

Publication Date - 15 November 2017

ISBN: 9780190253585

688 pages
Paperback
5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches

In Stock

A comprehensive anthology on human nature and philosophy that includes readings from Western and Eastern philosophies and religions

Description

Philosophy and the Human Condition: An Anthology brings together a rich collection of historically arranged readings on the crucial philosophical problems related to the human condition and human nature. Its contents are drawn from a wide range of sources, including the traditional works of Western philosophers from Plato to the present day; relevant extracts from religious texts; and contributions by women, traditions outside of the western philosophical canon, and other disciplines. Each reading selection is accompanied by an introduction. An extended introduction to philosophy at the beginning of the text addresses each of six principal issues that will be prominent in the reading selections drawn from the history of philosophy--the relation of mind and body; personal immortality; freedom of the will; the question of whether humans are naturally benevolent or naturally brutal; the nature and possibility of human happiness; and philosophical issues relating to race and gender--making the text an ideal all-in-one resource for introductory courses in philosophy.

Features

  • A wide selection of substantial readings from philosophy and religion, including western, non-Western, traditional, and contemporary sources
  • A flexible, historical organization centered around key topics allows instructors to select the passages that most suit the way they design their courses in human nature or introductory philosophy
  • An extended introduction to philosophy in the opening chapter addresses each of six principal issues that will be prominent in the reading selections drawn from the history of philosophy--the relation of mind and body; personal immortality; freedom of the will; the question of whether humans are naturally benevolent or naturally brutal; the nature and possibility of human happiness; and philosophical issues relating to race and gender
  • Introductions accompanying each reading provide an overall sweep of the philosopher's or text's account of the human condition

About the Author(s)

Brian R. Clack is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego. He is the author of Love, Drugs, Art, Religion: The Pains and Consolations of Existence (2014) and the coauthor of The Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Introduction, Second Edition (2008).

Tyler Hower is Instructor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, where he has taught since 2003.

Reviews

"Philosophy and the Human Condition is one of the more flexible/adaptable anthologies on the market today, and the diversity of selections is paralleled in few texts that I've examined in recent years. The inclusion of religious texts with which students may be only vaguely familiar is a major advantage of this reader over others. For students encountering philosophy for the first time, it is a very straightforward and unintimidating yet thorough and diverse text."--Ryan M. Lozano, San Antonio College

"The strengths of this anthology include: the historical approach to the presentation of the major philosophers, the eastern and western perspectives it offers, the relevant and substantial excerpts, and the flexibility that it affords instructors."--Herminia V. Reyes, San Diego State University and University of San Diego

"The selections are wide-ranging and diverse, and many are by authors who still merit a close read."--Jeffrey Jordan, University of Delaware

"This book's primary virtues are that it engages the questions in philosophy that students find most compelling and that it does so through careful selections from primary texts."--Crystal L'Hote, Saint Michael's College

Table of Contents

    Preface
    INTRODUCTION: PHILOSOPHIZING ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION
    PART ONE: RELIGIOUS SCRIPTURES
    1. The Hebrew Bible
    2. The Upanishads
    3. Confucian Sources
    4. Buddhist Scriptures
    5. The Bhagavad Gita
    6. The New Testament
    7. The Qur'an
    PART TWO: CLASSICAL SOURCES
    8. Plato
    9. Aristotle
    10. Epicurus
    11. Lucretius
    12. Seneca
    13. Martial
    14. Plutarch
    15. Epictetus
    16. Plotinus
    PART THREE: MEDIEVAL TEXTS
    17. Augustine
    18. Boethius
    19. Maimonides
    20. Thomas Aquinas
    PART FOUR: RENAISSANCE AND MODERN WORKS
    21. Michel de Montaigne
    22. William Shakespeare
    23. Thomas Hobbes
    24. René Descartes
    25. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes
    26. François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
    27. Blaise Pascal
    28. John Locke
    29. Benedict de Spinoza
    30. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
    31. Alexander Pope
    32. Voltaire
    33. Émilie Du Châtelet
    34. Samuel Johnson
    35. Julien Offray de la Mettrie
    36. Thomas Reid
    37. David Hume
    38. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    39. Adam Smith
    40. Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
    41. Immanuel Kant
    42. Edmund Burke
    PART FIVE: LATE MODERN WRITINGS
    43. William Paley
    44. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet
    45. Jeremy Bentham
    46. Pierre-Simon Laplace
    47. Joseph de Maistre
    48. Mary Wollstonecraft
    49. Thomas Malthus
    50. Arthur Schopenhauer
    51. Giacomo Leopardi
    52. John Stuart Mill
    53. John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle
    54. Charles Darwin
    55. Frederick Douglass
    56. Karl Marx
    57. Friedrich Nietzsche
    PART SIX: TWENTIETH CENTURY AND CONTEMPORARY VOICES
    58. Sigmund Freud
    59. W. E. B. Du Bois
    60. Ludwig Wittgenstein
    61. Martin Heidegger
    62. H. H. Price
    63. Gilbert Ryle
    64. Jean-Paul Sartre
    65. Hannah Arendt
    66. Simone de Beauvoir
    67. Albert Camus
    68. P. F. Strawson
    69. John Hick
    70. Bernard Williams
    71. Robert Nozick
    72. Genevieve Lloyd
    73. David Lewis
    74. Paul Churchland
    75. Patricia Smith Churchland
    76. John Gray
    77. Patricia Hill Collins
    78. Grace Jantzen
    79. Charles W. Mills

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