A01=Beverley Clack
arguments
aspects
Author_Beverley Clack
basic
beneath
born
Category=QDTJ
Category=QRAB
centuries
certainties
dominate
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
essence
human
human self
lie
life
meaningless
models
nature
people
physical features
possible
problem
spirituality
three
tradition
various
western
Product details
- ISBN 9780745622781
- Weight: 363g
- Dimensions: 158 x 236mm
- Publication Date: 05 Jul 2002
- Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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For centuries people have debated the nature of the human self. Running beneath these various arguments lie three certainties – we are born, reproduce sexually, and die. The models of spirituality which dominate the Western tradition have claimed that it is possible to transcend these aspects of human physicality by ascribing to human beings alternative traits, such as consciousness, mind and reason. By locating the essence of human life outside its basic physical features, mortality itself has come to be viewed as a problem, for it appears to render human life both meaningless and absurd. Complex connections have then been made between the key features of life: sex is linked with death, and birth becomes the event that introduces the child to the world of decay – and ultimately to death itself.
This fascinating book exposes the way in which the preoccupation with transcendence in both religious and secular thinking has distorted our sense of what it is to be human. At the same time, Sex and Death offers an alternative approach to the debate, based on an acceptance of mortality that emphasizes the depth and profundity possible in human life. It is an argument which will be essential reading for students of philosophy or religion, as well as the general reader interested in these debates.
Beverley Clack is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies and Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. She is also the author of The Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction (Polity, 1998), with Brian R. Clack.
