The Humane Perspective

Abstract

Abstract This introductory chapter, specially written for the volume, describes the overall aims of the book. It explains how the ‘humane philosophy’ agenda aims to be grounded in the realities of human practice and performance, and pervasively informed by experiential engagement with those realities. It references the work of Iain McGilchrist, Bernard Williams, Sigmund Freud, Martha Nussbaum, Eleonore Stump, and Judith Wolfe, in arguing for a more emotionally and imaginatively engaged form of philosophy, which goes beyond abstract argumentation so as to draw on all the resources available the human mind. As an appendix to the chapter, there is a conspectus of the volume, setting out its main sections—‘Manifesto and Method’; ‘Morality and Meaning’; ‘Science and its Limits’; and ‘Reaching for the Transcendent’—and providing an overview of the argument in each of the chapters.