Community of Individuals

Drawing on the spirit of classical American Philosophy, A Community of Individuals is an original, highly engaging, and important philosophical exploration of pressing personal and social problems. With clear, compelling, spirited writing, Lachs tackles a wide range of topics from the responsibility of educators and the role of education to the problems of aging and the desire for immortality, from genetic engineering and biomedical research to genocide and moral progress. The work also includes new, significant discussion of major American thinkers. The common theme running through the book is the complex relationships between individuality and community, and how we might think through their competing demands to live better lives. Introduction Part I. Intellectuals and Courage 1. Intellectuals and Courage' 2. Reflections on Philosophy Part I. Philosophy at the Center Part II.A Future for Philosophy 3. Teaching as a Calling 4. Education in the Twenty-First Century Part II. Issues for Individuals 1. What Humans did not Make 2. Valuation Species 3. Improving Life 4. Transcendence in Philosophy and in Everyday Life 5. The Vague Hope of Immortality Part III. Problems for Communities 1. Both Better Off and Better: Moral Progress Amid Continuing Carnage 2. The Significance of Purposes for Bioethics 3. Grand Dreams of Perfect People 4. Researchers and their Subjects as Neighbors 5. Dying Old as a Social Problem Part IV. American Philosophers 1. The Insignificance of Individuals 2. Santayana as Pragmatist 3. Neoplatonic Elements in the Spiritual Life 4. Peirce: Inquiry as Social Life 5. Peirce and Santayana on Purposes 6. Metaphysics and the Social Construction of Human Nature