San Antonio College Library

Cynthia Brown, Professor Emerita, Dominican University of California, describes the "big history" approach to understanding the role of the human in relation to the historical unfolding of the cosmos and Earth. She highlights key threshold moments of evolutionary change.

"Surveying a wide range of texts - religious, philosophical, literary, even comic - Erica Fudge explains the crucial role that reason played in conceptualizations of the human and the animal, as well as the distinctions between the two. Brutal Reasoning looks at the ways in which humans were conceptualized, at what being "human" meant, and at how humans could lose their humanity. It also takes up the questions of what made an animal an animal, why...

"Through a close textual analysis and a contrastive examination of documents, Mark Glouberman explores the biblical roots of our Western sense of self-identity and the ways in which non-philosophical Greek materials enhance our understanding of how that cultural view developed. Glouberman illustrates how the Hebrew Scriptures advance a humanist rather than a religious view of human nature. He then shows that this same view is germinally present in...

This book includes chapters on the most representative structuralists (in anthropology, Marxism, psychoanalysis, literature, and history) as well as on their opponents (in Marxism, hermeneutics, and sociology), so that this book about structuralism also put structuralism in its intellectual and political milieu.

An innovative thinker tackles the controversial question of why we believe in God and how religion shapes our lives and our future. For a growing number of people, there is nothing more important than religion. It is an integral part of their marriage, child rearing, and community. In this daring new book, distinguished philosopher Dennett takes a hard look at this phenomenon and asks why. Where does our devotion to God come from and what purpose...

"Claude Lévi-Strauss is one of the major thinkers of the modern age. Regarded as a crucial figure in the development of structuralism, his writings are studied across a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy and literary studies. The Cambridge Companion to Lévi-Strauss presents a major reassessment of his work and influence. The fifteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume engage with the controversies that have surrounded...

"This book traces the development of theories of the self and personal identity from the ancient Greeks to the present day. From Plato and Aristotle to Freud and Foucault, Raymond Martin and John Barresi explore the works of a wide range of thinkers and reveal the larger intellectual trends, controversies, and ideas that have revolutionized the way we think about ourselves."--Jacket.

The first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the origins and current state of transhumanist thinking The rapid pace of emerging technologies is playing an increasingly important role in overcoming fundamental human limitations. Featuring core writings by seminal thinkers in the speculative possibilities of the posthuman condition, essays address key philosophical arguments for and against human enhancement, explore the inevitability of life...