Philosophical Anthropology

The human being has always been a question. Gifted with understanding, we wonder how to understand ourselves. Philosophy has pondered this question from its very beginnings, and the discoveries of contemporary science seem only to deepen the conundrum. We have found out much about the brain and its functions, but the relation of the brain to the mind still seems to elude us. We have mapped the human genome, yet the instantiation of new human life remains mysterious. We have traced our human origins through evolution, but how the first humans came to be is still obscure. Are we merely material or also spiritual? And if so, is the human hopelessly split between matter and spirit, body and soul, or is human wholeness more than just a slogan-- perhaps an ontological reality? This book explores such questions and offers some insights by retrieving the philosophical tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.