"Luc Ferry has taken a great risk in posing the only question that counts today, the question of the meaning of life. He stands out therefore as one of the most gifted philosophers of his generation, one of the rare, the very rare philosophers, who has outgrown the commentary on texts and reverence towards master thinkers to open up a new field of thought." - Pascal Bruckner, Le Nouvel Observateur

What happens when the meaning of life based on a divine revelation no longer makes sense? Does the quest for transcendence end in the pursuit of material success and self-absorption? Luc Ferry argues that modernity and the emergence of secular humanism in Europe since the eighteenth century have not killed the search for meaning and the sacred, or even the idea of God, but rather have transformed both through a dual process: the humanization of the divine and the divinization of the human. Ferry sees evidence for the first of these in the Catholic Church's attempts to counter the growing rejection of dogmatism and to translate the religious tradition into contemporary language. The second he traces to the birth of modern love and humanitarianism, both of which demand a concern for others and even self-sacrifice in defense of values that transcend life itself. Ferry concludes with a powerful statement in favor of what he calls "transcendental humanism" - a concept that for the first time in human history gives us access to a genuine spirituality rooted in human beings instead of the divine.
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What happens when the meaning of life based on a divine revelation no longer makes sense? Luc Ferry argues that modernity has not killed the search for meaning but has transformed the search into a more humanitarian language.
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Product details

ISBN
9780226244853
Published
2002-05-15
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
Weight
227 gr
Height
22 mm
Width
14 mm
Thickness
1 mm
Age
UU, UP, P, 05, 06
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Number of pages
172

Author
Translated by

Biographical note

Luc Ferry teaches at the Sorbonne and at the University of Caen in France. He is the author or coauthor of seven previous books published by the University of Chicago Press, including most recently The New Ecological Order.