To Flourish or Destruct by Christian Smith
In his 2010 book What Is a Person?, Christian Smith argued that sociology had for too long neglected this fundamental question. Prevailing social theories, he wrote, do not adequately "capture our deep subjective experience as persons, crucial dimensions of the richness of our own lived lives, what thinkers in previous ages might have called our 'souls' or 'hearts.'" Building on Smith's previous work, To Flourish or Destruct examines the motivations intrinsic to this subjective experience: Why do people do what they do? How can we explain the activity that gives rise to all human social life and social structures? Smith argues that our actions stem from a motivation to realize what he calls natural human goods: ends that are, by nature, constitutionally good for all human beings. He goes on to explore the ways we can and do fail to realize these ends-a failure that can result in varying gradations of evil. Rooted in critical realism and informed by work in philosophy, psychology, and other fields, Smith's ambitious book situates the idea of personhood at the center of our attempts to understand how we might shape good human lives and societies.
"Speaking in a voice of common sense and reasonableness, and using everyday language, Smith blasts apart most of the assumptions of modern social science and relativism and sets up an alternative scaffolding of moral realism and the theoretical position he calls PersonalismThis book represents a major advance in sociology and more specifically within critical realism, which is gradually emerging as a full-fledged alternative in the social sciences. I am fundamentally convinced by this book." (George Steinmetz, University of Michigan)
Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, where he directs the Center for the Study of Religion and Society and the Notre Dame Center for Social Research. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including What Is a Person? and Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780226231952 |
| ISBN 10 | 022623195X |
| Title | To Flourish or Destruct |
| Author | Christian Smith |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | The University of Chicago Press |
| Year published | 2015-03-23 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |