An edition of The human predicament (2017)

The human predicament

a candid guide to life's biggest questions

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Cover of: The human predicament by David Benatar
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Last edited by ImportBot
April 20, 2023 | History
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An edition of The human predicament (2017)

The human predicament

a candid guide to life's biggest questions

by

  • 0 Ratings
  • 4 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 1 Have read

"Are our lives meaningful, or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortaility be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our death by suicide? Many people ask these big questions - and some people are plagued by them. Surprisingly, analytic philosophers have said relatively little about these important questions about the meaning of life. When they have tackled the big questions, they have tended, like popular writers, to offer comforting, optimistic answers. [This book] invites readers to take a clear-eyed and unfettered view of the human condition."--Jacket.

Publish Date
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Language
English
Pages
264

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Subjects
Life, Meaning (Philosophy), Meaning (philosophy)

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Edition Availability
Cover of: The human predicament
The human predicament: a candid guide to life's biggest questions
2017, Oxford University Press
in English
  • Not in Library
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Book Details

Table of Contents

Preface
A reader's guide
1. Introduction (Life's big questions ; Pessimism and optimism ; The human predicament and the animal predicament ; To tell or not to tell?)
2. Meaning (Introduction ; Understanding the question ; The (somewhat) good news [Meaning sub specie hominis ; Meaning sub specie hominis communitatis ; Meaning sub specie humanitatis] ; Conclusion)
3. Meaninglessness (The bad news ; The theistic gambit ; Nature's 'purposes' ; Scarce value ; Discounting the cosmic perspective; Focusing on terrestrial meaning ; Sour grapes and varieties of meaning worth wanting ; Conclusion)
4. Quality (The meaning and quality of life ; Why people's judgment about the quality of their lives are unreliable ; The poor quality of human life ; Why is there more bad than good? ; Secular optimistic theodicies ; Conclusion).
5. Death (Introduction ; Is death bad? [Hedonism (and its discontents) ; The deprivation account ; Annihilation ; When is death bad for the person who dies? ; The symmetry argument ; Taking Epicureans seriously?] ; How bad are different deaths? ; Living in the shadow of death)
6. Immortality (Delusons and fanatsies of immortality ; Sour grapes ; Conclusion)
7. Suicide (Introduction ; Responding to common arguments against suicide [Suicide as murder ; Suicide as irrational ; Suicide as unnatural ; Suicide as cowardice ; Interests of others ; The finality of death] ; Broadening the case for suicide [A more accurate assessment of life's quality ; Does meaninglessness in life warrant suicide? ; Restoring an individual's control] ; Conclusion)
8. Conclusion (The human predicament in a nutshell ; Pessimism and optimism (again) ; Responding to the human predicament).

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-255) and index.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
128
Library of Congress
BD435 .B44 2017, BD435.B44 2017

The Physical Object

Pagination
xix, 264 pages
Number of pages
264

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL26952946M
ISBN 10
0190633816
ISBN 13
9780190633813
LCCN
2016048629
OCLC/WorldCat
974566754

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Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
April 20, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
December 19, 2022 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
October 11, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
August 5, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
May 24, 2019 Created by MARC Bot Imported from marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record.