Tragic Humanity and Hope: Understanding Our Struggle to Be Scientific Sapiential and Moral

With insights into the thought of Gabriel Marcel Tragic Humanity and Hope recognizes that in our age scientific knowing is becoming a dominant form of knowledge. The leadership influence growth and gravitational center of human existence depend it seems on scientific knowledge. As a result we live in an information age that prizes production and immediate satisfaction but devalues the cultivation of wisdom. We risk diminishing the significance of sapiential knowing to deal with the immensely complex and intricate domains of human relationality. Furthermore inquiry into moral discernment methods expands becoming more diverse; yet scholarly conversations that engage the vital exigencies as founding moral sensibility seem noticeably insufficient. Tragic Humanity and Hope strives to overcome this lack. But Ojara also seeks ethical groundings that exceed the language of pragmatic utility and aesthetic preference. Foundations of morality cannot exclude questions of the common good and shared moral obligations that free people to reach out to one another with hopes and memories that endow life with shared meaning. Through continuity and cohesion that the interlacing of scientific sapiential and moral knowing bring life becomes a marvelous expression of light joy and fervor. Ojara presents once again a compelling argument with rigor clarity and forthrightness. Ojaras scholarly work teems with the spirit of hope and of peoples availability to one another. Not only is Ojaras work penetrating it also encourages the joy of living. It further touches the heart of the wisdom tradition . . . and offers a new way of understanding the foundations of morality. This is an illuminating piece of work that offers guides sensibilities and liberating pathways for our ambiguous world and its tensions. --Christopher A. Brooks Virginia Commonwealth University With the publication of his third major work Tragic Humanity and Hope Pius Ojara SJ emerges as a major voice in the growing international debate over humanity and its prospects. While rooted in the philosophy of Gabriel Marcel Ojara speaks in his own very contemporary philosophical voice concerning the challenges and possibilities of the human condition. His cultural roots in Africa give Ojara a distinctive and a creative perspective on questions of hope and despair which engage every human being but especially the oppressed majority of the human race. His reflections combine scientific sapiential and moral motifs and blend realism creative insight and compassion. I recommend this book with enthusiasm to anyone interested in the fate of humanity on this planet. --Donald L. Gelpi SJ Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley Emeritus Pius Ojara is a graduate student at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. In 2003 he received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Zimbabwe. He is the author of The Return of Conversion (2004) and Toward a Fuller Human Identity (2006). Ojara is working on another book tentatively titled Faith Culture and Church as Family.