Download or read book What Is a Person written by Christian Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a person? This fundamental question is a perennial concern of philosophers and theologians. But, Christian Smith here argues, it also lies at the center of the social scientist’s quest to interpret and explain social life. In this ambitious book, Smith presents a new model for social theory that does justice to the best of our humanistic visions of people, life, and society. Finding much current thinking on personhood to be confusing or misleading, Smith finds inspiration in critical realism and personalism. Drawing on these ideas, he constructs a theory of personhood that forges a middle path between the extremes of positivist science and relativism. Smith then builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and William Sewell to demonstrate the importance of personhood to our understanding of social structures. From there he broadens his scope to consider how we can know what is good in personal and social life and what sociology can tell us about human rights and dignity. Innovative, critical, and constructive, What Is a Person? offers an inspiring vision of a social science committed to pursuing causal explanations, interpretive understanding, and general knowledge in the service of truth and the moral good.
Download or read book A Pretty Good Person written by Lewis B. Smedes and published by Harper San Francisco. This book was released on 1990 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What it takes to live with courage, gratitude and integrity, or whenpretty good is as good as you can be.
Download or read book How I Tried to Be a Good Person written by Ulli Lust and published by Fantagraphics Books. This book was released on 2019-07-17 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lust's follow-up to her first internationally lauded graphic memoir, How I Tried to Be a Good Person, picks up directly where its predecessor left off. Revealing and powerful, Lust recounts her life as a young, enthusiastic anarchist making her way in Vienna in the 1990s - and of her love for two men: the "perfect companion" Georg, an actor twenty years her elder, and the "perfect lover," Kimata, a Nigerian man-about-town. As her relationships with the two men evolve, jealousy increasingly mounts and leads to emotional and violent outbreaks that threaten her life.
Download or read book The Person and the Common Good written by Jacques Maritain and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 1994-04-22 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Person and the Common Good, originally published in 1947, presents Jacques Maritain's clearest and most sustained treatment of the person. He asks whether the person is simply the self and nothing more. After more than half a century, Maritain's question still has great validity, given the current inordinate preoccupation with individualism. Presenting with moving insight the relations between man, as a person and as an individual, and the society of which he is a part, Maritain's treatment of a lasting topic speaks to this generation as well as those to come. He makes clear the personalism rooted in the doctrine of St. Thomas and separates the social philosophy centered in the dignity of the human person from every social philosophy centered in the primacy of the individual and the private good.
Download or read book How a Good Person Can Really Win written by Pavan Choudary and published by Wisdom Village Publications. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Art of Being Kind written by Stefan Einhorn and published by Piatkus Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of kindness is sometimes linked to qualities such a stupidity, gullibility and timidity, but in THE ART OF BEING KIND the word is given a new slant. Stefan Einhorn passionately believes that kindness is one of the finest things we can devote ourselves to, and is the single most important factor for success in our lives. If we strive to be kind to others, we simply cannot avoid doing ourselves good. In THE ART OF BEING KIND Einhorn describes what being kind involves, what can prevent us from being generous to others, examples of scientific research proving the benefits of benevolent behaviour, and sound and practical advice on how we can become kinder, and therefore more successful, in our everyday lives.
Download or read book The Good Person Of Szechwan written by Bertolt Brecht and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-17 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brecht's dark, dazzling world-view...makes an absolutely devastating impact. The play is fuelled by the brilliant perception that everyone requires such a dual or split personality to survive.' Evening Standard Three gods come to earth hoping to discover one really good person. No one can be found until they meet Shen Te, a prostitute with a heart of gold. Rewarded by the gods, she gives up her profession and buys a tabacco shop but finds it is impossible to survive as a good person in a corrupt world without the support of her ruthless alter ego Shui Ta. Brecht's parable of good and evil was first performed in 1943 and remains one of his most popular and frequently produced plays worldwide. This Student Edition features an extensive introduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion of the context, themes, characters, style and language as well as questions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text. It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature.
Download or read book So You Think You re a Good Person written by Cal Seban and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author's intent is to call into question the validity of a belief about human nature that enjoys almost universal acceptance. He contends that there is a huge difference between the “good” people we think we are, and what we're really like. He hopes this book will challenge us to evaluate ourselves and our core values.This book is about us—our humanity and our inhumanity, our selflessness and our self-centeredness, our compassion and our indifference. It is about the age old question of what we're really like in the depths of our being. Most assume that, “basically, we're good people.” Isn't that just the way it is? Isn't that what everybody thinks? If someone feels like their self-image, integrity or reputation is being threatened, we often hear them say, “I'm a good person!” It would be pretty hard to live with yourself if you weren't able to maintain some semblance of self-worth.We've taken it for granted that, “basically, we're good people.” Something we've just assumed to be a given has been elevated to the status of truth. The reader will be asked to do some soul searching as to the validity of this widely held belief. Two key factors in making any assessment of whether or not we're “good people” are the standard by which we measure ourselves with respect to charitable giving and volunteerism.The reader is challenged to reevaluate their standard of what a good person is. Furthermore, this book asks the reader to take action based on their understanding of what it means to be a good person. Do you want to go with the flow, or start struggling against the strong cultural currents of ethics, morals and values that seek to pull us along with everyone else? His reason for writing is that he hurts for and is concerned about those who are less fortunate, those dying from starvation or disease and those living in conditions that make it difficult to maintain any semblance of dignity and hope. He challenges the reader to use their potential to help the suffering, the abandoned and the destitute.The book addresses many current high-visibility issues that are relevant and part of today's conversation: income inequality and the wealth gap, the fading of the American Dream and the decline of the middle-class, government regulation and the Volcker rule, bank penalties for actions taken during the mortgage crisis and the anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's declaration of a War on Poverty, Congressional gridlock and, most of all, Pope Francis' emphasis on the need to care for the poor and the marginalized. The dynamics involved in these issues demonstrate the author's belief about the nature of man, reflected in lives that are characterized by self-interest, greed and indifference. We have this tendency to look out not just for the needs of ourselves and our own, but also our wants, at the expense of the unmet needs of others - many of whom are living in misery and despair. This book gives his perspective on how all of these issues fit into the big picture of the meaning of life.
Download or read book The Person You Mean to Be written by Dolly Chugh and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Finally: an engaging, evidence-based book about how to battle biases, champion diversity and inclusion, and advocate for those who lack power and privilege. Dolly Chugh makes a convincing case that being an ally isn’t about being a good person—it’s about constantly striving to be a better person.” —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg Foreword by Laszlo Bock, the bestselling author of Work Rules! and former Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google An inspiring guide from Dolly Chugh, an award-winning social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business, on how to confront difficult issues including sexism, racism, inequality, and injustice so that you can make the world (and yourself) better. Many of us believe in equality, diversity, and inclusion. But how do we stand up for those values in our turbulent world? The Person You Mean to Be is the smart, "semi-bold" person’s guide to fighting for what you believe in. Dolly reveals the surprising causes of inequality, grounded in the "psychology of good people". Using her research findings in unconscious bias as well as work across psychology, sociology, economics, political science, and other disciplines, she offers practical tools to respectfully and effectively talk politics with family, to be a better colleague to people who don’t look like you, and to avoid being a well-intentioned barrier to equality. Being the person we mean to be starts with a look at ourselves. She argues that the only way to be on the right side of history is to be a good-ish— rather than good—person. Good-ish people are always growing. Second, she helps you find your "ordinary privilege"—the part of your everyday identity you take for granted, such as race for a white person, sexual orientation for a straight person, gender for a man, or education for a college graduate. This part of your identity may bring blind spots, but it is your best tool for influencing change. Third, Dolly introduces the psychological reasons that make it hard for us to see the bias in and around us. She leads you from willful ignorance to willful awareness. Finally, she guides you on how, when, and whom, to engage (and not engage) in your workplaces, homes, and communities. Her science-based approach is a method any of us can put to use in all parts of our life. Whether you are a long-time activist or new to the fight, you can start from where you are. Through the compelling stories Dolly shares and the surprising science she reports, Dolly guides each of us closer to being the person we mean to be.
Download or read book How to be Good written by Nick Hornby and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-05-05 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to be Good is Nick Hornby's hilarious bestselling novel on life, love and charity 'I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don't want to be married to him any more. . . ' London GP Katie Carr always thought she was a good person. With her husband David making a living as 'The Angriest Man in Holloway', she figured she could put up with anything. Until, that is, David meets DJ Goodnews and becomes a good person too. A far-too-good person who starts committing crimes of charity like taking in the homeless and giving their kids' toys away. Suddenly Katie's feeling very bad about herself, and thinking that if charity begins at home, then maybe its time to move. . . This laugh-out-loud novel, from the bestselling author of About a Boy and High Fidelity, will have you gripped from start to finish and will appeal to fans of David Nicholls and Jonathan Coe, as well as readers in need of a moral compass everywhere. 'Pins you in your armchair ad won't let go . . . How to be Good? How to be bloody marvellous, more like' Mail on Sunday 'It does exactly what it says on the cover. Hornby's prose is artful and effortless, his spiky wit as razored as a number-two cut' Independent 'The writing is so funny, and the set-pieces so brilliant...Hornby's best book since Fever Pitch' Lynn Truss, The Times
Download or read book The Book of Job written by Harold S. Kushner and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Jewish Encounter series From one of our most trusted spiritual advisers, a thoughtful, illuminating guide to that most fascinating of biblical texts, the book of Job, and what it can teach us about living in a troubled world. The story of Job is one of unjust things happening to a good man. Yet after losing everything, Job—though confused, angry, and questioning God—refuses to reject his faith, although he challenges some central aspects of it. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner examines the questions raised by Job’s experience, questions that have challenged wisdom seekers and worshippers for centuries. What kind of God permits such bad things to happen to good people? Why does God test loyal followers? Can a truly good God be all-powerful? Rooted in the text, the critical tradition that surrounds it, and the author’s own profoundly moral thinking, Kushner’s study gives us the book of Job as a touchstone for our time. Taking lessons from historical and personal tragedy, Kushner teaches us about what can and cannot be controlled, about the power of faith when all seems dark, and about our ability to find God. Rigorous and insightful yet deeply affecting, The Book of Job is balm for a distressed age—and Rabbi Kushner’s most important book since When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Download or read book Out of Touch written by Michelle Drouin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.
Download or read book Moral Exemplars in the Analects written by Amy Olberding and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, Olberding proposes a new theoretical model for reading the Analects. Her thesis is that the moral sensibility of the text derives from an effort to conceptually capture and articulate the features seen in exemplars, exemplars that are identified and admired pre-theoretically and thus prior to any conceptual criteria for virtue. Put simply, Olberding proposes an "origins myth" in which Confucius, already and prior to his philosophizing knows whom he judges to be virtuous. The work we see him and the Analects' authors pursuing is their effort to explain in an organized, generalized, and abstract way why pre-theoretically identified exemplars are virtuous. Moral reasoning here begins with people and with inchoate experiences of admiration for them. The conceptual work of the text reflects the attempt to analyze such people and parse such experiences in order to distill abstract qualities that account for virtue and can guide emulation.
Download or read book A Heart as Wide as the World written by Sharon Salzberg and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2024-10-22 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved Buddhist meditation teacher and New York Times–bestselling author of Real Happiness offers encouragement and inspiration for anyone on the spiritual path Buddhist teachings have the power to transform our lives for the better, says Sharon Salzberg, and all we need to bring about this transformation can be found in the ordinary events of our everyday experiences. In A Heart as Wide as the World, Salzberg distills more than twenty-five years of teaching and practicing meditation into a series of short essays, rich with anecdotes and personal revelations, that offer genuine aid and comfort for anyone on the spiritual path. Many chance moments, both small and profound, serve as the basis for Salzberg's teachings: hearing a market stall hawker calling, “I have what you need!”; noting hotel guests’ reactions to a midnight fire alarm; watching her teacher, Dipa Ma, bless a belligerent dog; seeing the Dalai Lama laughing uproariously at his own mistake. Each passing moment, Salzberg shows, can help us down the path toward “a seamlessness of connection and an unbounded heart.”
Download or read book A Decent Life written by Todd May and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-03-22 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You’re probably never going to be a saint. Even so, let’s face it: you could be a better person. We all could. But what does that mean for you? In a world full of suffering and deprivation, it’s easy to despair—and it’s also easy to judge ourselves for not doing more. Even if we gave away everything we own and devoted ourselves to good works, it wouldn’t solve all the world’s problems. It would make them better, though. So is that what we have to do? Is anything less a moral failure? Can we lead a fundamentally decent life without taking such drastic steps? Todd May has answers. He’s not the sort of philosopher who tells us we have to be model citizens who display perfect ethics in every decision we make. He’s realistic: he understands that living up to ideals is a constant struggle. In A Decent Life, May leads readers through the traditional philosophical bases of a number of arguments about what ethics asks of us, then he develops a more reasonable and achievable way of thinking about them, one that shows us how we can use philosophical insights to participate in the complicated world around us. He explores how we should approach the many relationships in our lives—with friends, family, animals, people in need—through the use of a more forgiving, if no less fundamentally serious, moral compass. With humor, insight, and a lively and accessible style, May opens a discussion about how we can, realistically, lead the good life that we aspire to. A philosophy of goodness that leaves it all but unattainable is ultimately self-defeating. Instead, Todd May stands at the forefront of a new wave of philosophy that sensibly reframes our morals and redefines what it means to live a decent life.
Download or read book A Novel about the Good Person written by Emma Andiievska and published by Cius Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliantly imaginative and boldly surrealistic tale of struggle between good and evil.
Download or read book When Bad Things Happen to Good People written by Harold S. Kushner and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an inspirational and compassionate approach to understanding the problems of life, and argues that we should continue to believe in God's fairness.
