What is a person?
Subtitle: rethinking humanity, social life, and the moral good from the person up
By: Christian Smith.
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 518
ISBN-13: 9780226765914
Subjects: Persons; Philosophical anthropology
Description: The task of understanding human beings, what we ourselves are, our constitution and condition, is a perennial problem in philosophy and related disciplines. Smith argues here that our understanding of human persons is threatened by technological development and capricious academic theories alike, seeking to deny or relativize the personhood of humanity. Smith's book puts a stake in the ground, in defense of a view of the human that is genuinely humanistic in the traditional sense and capable of sustaining with intellectual coherence things like modern human rights and universal benevolence.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Initial arguments; title: The emergence of personhood; title: Key theoretical resources; title: Critical engagements; title: The reality of social construction; title: Excursus: getting to truth; title: Network structuralism's missing persons; title: Persons and mechanisms (not) in variables sociology; title: Constructive development; title: The personal sources of social structures; title: The good; title: Human dignity; title: Postscript.