Perfection

In a masterful survey of the history of the idea of human perfection, prize-winning author and noted rhetorician Michael J. Hyde leads a fascinating excursion through Western philosophy, religion, science, and art. Eloquently and engagingly he delves the canon of Western thought, drawing on figures from St. Augustine and John Rawls to Leonardo da Vinci and David Hume to Kenneth Burke and Mary Shelley. On the journey, Hyde expounds on the very notion and 'Otherness' of God, the empirical and ontological workings of daily existence, the development of reason, and the bounds of beauty. In the end, he ponders the consequences of the perfection-driven impulse of medical science and considers the implications of the burgeoning rhetoric of 'our post-human future.' It is nothing short of a triumphant examination of why we humans are challenged to live a life of significant insignificance.

ISBN 1602582440   Pages 322 ISBN13 9781602582446 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 708 Publisher Baylor University Press   Published in Waco Imprint Baylor University Press   Height (mm) 230 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 155 Publication date 01 Feb 2010   Spine width (mm) 30 DEWEY 128   Academic level Postgraduate DEWEY edition DC22

1		Coming to terms with perfection		1
2		God on a good day		19
3		Interpreting the call		39
4		The otherness all around us		59
5		Reason		77
6		Beauty		107
7		The lived body		149
8		The good life, the good death		181
9		The biotechnology debate		211
10		On being an oxymoron		243
		Notes		281
		Index		309

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