The Drama of Humanity: Towards a Philosophy of Humanity in History

by Brendan M. Purcell

This inquiry into the drama of humanity opens with a reflection on its first act some 40,000 years ago. That drama is explored as unfolding through the quest for the ground of existence in mythic, philosophic, revelational, and post-ideological experience. Palaeolithic symbolizations, the Greek tragic poets, Plato's Symposium , Aristotle on friendship, the Book of Job, St. John's Gospel, and the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn are explored as illuminating moments in the meditative anamnesis of the constant quest of human consciousness. Arising from these empirical studies, the theoretical understanding of humanity is developed in terms of our intrinsic we-wardness. Bernard Lonergan's hermeneutic context of universal viewpoint and Eric Voegelin's notion of universal humanity are discussed and presupposed throughout the study.

295 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996