Human Excellence and an Ecological Conception of the Psyche

Human Excellence and an Ecological Conception of the Psyche
Author: John Hanwell Riker
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1991-07-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438417365

This book explores the possibility of grounding the idea of human excellence, which has traditionally been associated with hierarchical systems, on an ecological structuring of the psyche. Riker bases his concept on recent work in psychoanalytic theory, emotion theory, sociobiology, ethnogenic social psychology, and feminism, as well as on the insights of such philosophers as Aristotle, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein.

Human Accomplishment

Human Accomplishment
Author: Charles Murray
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 790
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0061745677

A sweeping cultural survey reminiscent of Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence. "At irregular times and in scattered settings, human beings have achieved great things. Human Accomplishment is about those great things, falling in the domains known as the arts and sciences, and the people who did them.' So begins Charles Murray's unique account of human excellence, from the age of Homer to our own time. Employing techniques that historians have developed over the last century but that have rarely been applied to books written for the general public, Murray compiles inventories of the people who have been essential to the stories of literature, music, art, philosophy, and the sciences—a total of 4,002 men and women from around the world, ranked according to their eminence. The heart of Human Accomplishment is a series of enthralling descriptive chapters: on the giants in the arts and what sets them apart from the merely great; on the differences between great achievement in the arts and in the sciences; on the meta-inventions, 14 crucial leaps in human capacity to create great art and science; and on the patterns and trajectories of accomplishment across time and geography. Straightforwardly and undogmatically, Charles Murray takes on some controversial questions. Why has accomplishment been so concentrated in Europe? Among men? Since 1400? He presents evidence that the rate of great accomplishment has been declining in the last century, asks what it means, and offers a rich framework for thinking about the conditions under which the human spirit has expressed itself most gloriously. Eye-opening and humbling, Human Accomplishment is a fascinating work that describes what humans at their best can achieve, provides tools for exploring its wellsprings, and celebrates the continuing common quest of humans everywhere to discover truths, create beauty, and apprehend the good.

From Bondage to Freedom

From Bondage to Freedom
Author: Michael LeBuffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2010-01-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199726159

Spinoza rejects fundamental tenets of received morality, including the notions of Providence and free will. Yet he retains rich theories of good and evil, virtue, perfection, and freedom. Building interconnected readings of Spinoza's accounts of imagination, error, and desire, Michael LeBuffe defends a comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's enlightened vision of human excellence. Spinoza holds that what is fundamental to human morality is the fact that we find things to be good or evil, not what we take those designations to mean. When we come to understand the conditions under which we act-that is, when we come to understand the sorts of beings that we are and the ways in which we interact with things in the world-then we can recast traditional moral notions in ways that help us to attain more of what we find to be valuable. For Spinoza, we find value in greater activity. Two hazards impede the search for value. First, we need to know and acquire the means to be good. In this respect, Spinoza's theory is a great deal like Hobbes's: we strive to be active, and in order to do so we need food, security, health, and other necessary components of a decent life. There is another hazard, however, that is more subtle. On Spinoza's theory of the passions, we can misjudge our own natures and fail to understand the sorts of beings that we really are. So we can misjudge what is good and might even seek ends that are evil. Spinoza's account of human nature is thus much deeper and darker than Hobbes's: we are not well known to ourselves, and the self-knowledge that is the foundation of virtue and freedom is elusive and fragile.

Achieving Human Excellence

Achieving Human Excellence
Author: Jeremy Gomer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2014-04-16
Genre:
ISBN: 9780692212226

Should we regard happiness as the most important pursuit of our lives? To most, it seems like unquestionable common sense that we ought to. However, if there were something even greater such that it could include happiness while also transcending it, then it would be reasonable to make that the ultimate object of our lives rather than mere happiness. For those looking to live a richer and more robust life, this book examines how one could and why one should achieve such a state through a scholarly and intellectual investigation into the philosophical foundations of human excellence.

Homer's Hero

Homer's Hero
Author: Michelle M. Kundmueller
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 143847668X

Offering a new, Plato-inspired reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this book traces the divergent consequences of love of honor and love of one's own private life for human excellence, justice, and politics. Analyzing Homer's intricate character portraits, Michelle M. Kundmueller concludes that the poet shows that the excellence or virtue to which humans incline depends on what they love most. Ajax's character demonstrates that human beings who seek honor strive, perhaps above all, to display their courage in battle, while Agamemnon's shows that the love of honor ultimately undermines the potential for moderation, destabilizing political order. In contrast to these portraits, the excellence that Homer links to the love of one's own, such as by Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, fosters moderation and employs speech to resolve conflict. It is Odysseus, rather than Achilles, who is the pinnacle of heroic excellence. Homer's portrait of humanity reveals the value of love of one's own as the better, albeit still incomplete, precursor to a just political order. Kundmueller brings her reading of Homer to bear on contemporary tensions between private life and the pursuit of public honor, arguing that individual desires continue to shape human excellence and our prospects for justice.

The 12 WAYS To HUMAN EXCELLENCE

The 12 WAYS To HUMAN EXCELLENCE
Author: BISIKAY
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2012-11-28
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1291872728

If you are seeking higher levels of Happiness, Wellness, Richness, Progress, Havenness, Uniqueness, Restness, Awareness, Humanness, Oneness, Goodness and Greatness... Try this super-book to help You TRANSFORM your LIFE and RENEW your SELF totally with a simple practical system. The 12 WAYS To HUMAN EXCELLENCE is unlike any other personal development book, as such. This seminal book/manual contains some new and very unique concepts and principles about Human Life. And, it also presents perhaps the most powerful system ever conceived for self improvement and life management in a PERSONALISED format to meet anyone and everyone's individual needs for the elusive Life Enrichment and Self Fulfilment. We give you the new model called SLP, SuperLifePower for your Strategic Life Planning: 1 Super SYSTEM, 12 Simple STRATEGIES To ENRICH Your LIFE And FULFIL Your SELF In 12 WAYS, From 12 DAYS To 12 DECADES Why not let this exceptional book lead you to understanding and achieving your own Human Excellence..

The Disciplined Heart

The Disciplined Heart
Author: Caroline J. Simon
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1997-03-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780802842060

Often what passes for love is a product of self-deception and wishful thinking. Genuine love, according to philosopher Caroline J. Simon, must be based on knowledge of reality, and Christianity affirms that reality includes not just who people are but the unfolding story of who God intends them to be. Taking the use of narrative seriously, The Disciplined Heart draws on works of literature to display a Christian understanding of love in its various forms: love of self, love of neighbor, friendship, romantic love, and marital love. Using instances of love and its counterfeits in novels and short stories by such authors as Flannery O'Connor, Leo Tolstoy, George Eliot, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Simon constructs an account of love's joys and obligations that both charms and instructs. Learned, astute, and elegantly written, The Disciplined Heart is a groundbreaking work at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and literary analysis.

The Quest for God and the Good

The Quest for God and the Good
Author: Diana Lobel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2011
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231153147

Lobel crosses Eastern and Western philosophical and religious traditions to discover a beauty and purpose at the heart of reality that makes life worth living. This title does not treat philosophy as an abstract, theoretical discipline but as living experience.

The Principle of Excellence

The Principle of Excellence
Author: Nimi Wariboko
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2009-10-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739136402

This book disturbs the 'normal' and depoliticized meaning of virtue through a genealogical reading of the debates, conceptual struggles, and ambiguities that were cleansed by virtue ethicists to produce today's conception of excellence. This approach provides the narrative raw material to craft a new meaning of excellence as a creative actualization of the potentials for human prosperity. The fundamental question asked and addressed about excellence is how communities can use excellence as the organizing principle for political and economic development. The author explores how large-scale modern societies can be better administered in environments characterized by contingency and possibilities. At the very least, excellence in societal governance practice should involve the creation of possibilities for community and participation by all its members so that their potentialities can be drawn out for the common good. The book also explores the connection between excellence and creativity. If excellence is the drive toward actualization of potentialities for all human beings, it follows that human creativity is an adequate form for that movement. The author not only attempts to trace and clarify the mystique of the creative functions of persons and social groups, but also shows how the creative functions of human life can express the unconditional eros of divine creativity. In the process of doing all this, the author offers a fresh and provocative perspective of philosophy and theology's oldest concerns: the good, truth, beauty, justice, love, hope, and the eschatological New Creation.