"The City of God" or "The City of Man"? This is the choice St. Augustine offered 1500 years ago - and according to Pierre Manent the modern West has decisively and irreversibly chosen the latter. In this book on the Western intellectual and political condition, Manent argues that the West has rejected the laws of God and of nature in a quest for human autonomy. But in declaring ourselves free and autonomous, he contends, we have, paradoxically, lost a sense of what it means to be human. In the first part of the book, Manent ...
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"The City of God" or "The City of Man"? This is the choice St. Augustine offered 1500 years ago - and according to Pierre Manent the modern West has decisively and irreversibly chosen the latter. In this book on the Western intellectual and political condition, Manent argues that the West has rejected the laws of God and of nature in a quest for human autonomy. But in declaring ourselves free and autonomous, he contends, we have, paradoxically, lost a sense of what it means to be human. In the first part of the book, Manent explores the development of the social sciences since the 17th century, portraying their growth as a sign of increasing human "self-conciousness." But as social scientists have sought to free us from the intellectual confines of the ancient world, he writes, they have embraced modes of analysis - economic, sociological, and historical - that treat only narrow aspects of the human condition and portray individuals as helpless victims of impersonal forces. As a result, we have lost all sense of human agency and of the unified human subject at the centre of intellectual study. Politics and culture have come to be seen as mere foam on the tides of historical and social necessity. In the second half of the book entitled "Self-Affirmation," Manent examines how the West, having discovered freedom, the discovered arbitrary will and its dangers. With no shared touchstones or conceptions of virtue, for example, we have found it increasingly hard to communicate with each other. This is a striking contrast to the past, he writes, when even traditions as different as the Classical and the Christian held many of these conceptions in common. The result of these discoveries, according to Manent, is the disturbing rootlessness that characterizes our time. By gaining autonomy from external authority, we have lost a sense of what we are. In "giving birth" to ourselves, we have abandoned that which alone can nurture and sustain us.
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Add this copy of The City of Man to cart. $10.93, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Princeton University Press.
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Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of The City of Man to cart. $13.52, fair condition, Sold by BooksRun rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Philadelphia, PA, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Princeton University Press.
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Good. The book shows average wear.; -We offer free returns for any reason and respond promptly to all inquiries. Your order will be packaged with care and ship on the same or next business day. Buy with confidence.
Add this copy of The City of Man to cart. $32.95, very good condition, Sold by Tracey's Book Shelf, LLC rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Rocky Mount, NC, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Princeton University Press.
Add this copy of The City of Man to cart. $56.06, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Princeton University Press.
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Very Good+ in Very Good jacket. Size: 9x6x0; 1st printing of 1st English-language edition published by Princeton University Press, 1998. With complete number line. Very good+ hardcover with DJ, from a personal collection (NOT ex-library). Binding is tight, sturdy, and square; corners sharp; text clean. Unclipped DJ has only very minor shelfwear. A very nice copy. Ships from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Add this copy of The City of Man to cart. $88.22, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Princeton University Press.
Add this copy of The City of Man to cart. $184.04, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Princeton University Press.