A Common Humanity
Thinking About Love and Truth and Justice
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:15th Sep '25
£17.99
This title is due to be published on 15th September, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Holocaust denial, racism, genocide of indigenous peoples and the long-lasting harms inflicted by colonialism pose deep challenges to any idea of a common humanity. How can we include these and countless other examples of evil within our vision of a shared morality? These painful human incongruities are precisely what Raimond Gaita boldly harmonizes in A Common Humanity.
Hatred with forgiveness, evil with love, suffering with compassion, and the mundane with the precious. Gaita asserts that our conception of humanity cannot be based upon the empty language of individual rights when it is our shared feelings of grief, hope, love, guilt, shame and remorse that offer a more potent foundation for common understanding.
Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Simon Weil, Primo Levi and Iris Murdoch, amongst others, Gaita creates a beautifully written and provocative new picture of our common humanity.
This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Preface and a substantial Postscript by the author, in which he revisits some of the main themes of A Common Humanity and engages with responses to it since it was first published.
'An exploration of how people make moral and ethical judgments by a controversial Autralian moral philosopher. Raimond Gaita's insights are original and his prose is as eloquent as it is affecting.' - The Economist, Books of the Year, 2000
'Gaita's genius ... is his ability to weigh the soul on a scale, and to show how goodness and justice might yet prevail.' - The Scotsman
'Profound and original ... his humane and wise book offers a view on life which deserves to be taken seriously.' - The Times Literary Supplement
'Gaita's gait bedazzles. In both writing and content, there appear senstivity, significance and feeling ... Wittgenstein advises 'Take your time'. I advise such with the issues of this book.' - The Philosophers' Magazine
'A striking and revelatory read ... I warmly recommend it.' - Timothy Chapell, Mind
'Distinctive and very interesting.' - The Tablet
'A Rare and distinguished contribution to our public life.' - Australian Review
'This Philosophy for the educated public is philosophy at its most profound' - Jean Curthoys, Australian Book Review
'The reflections in it are first hand: the author does not follow the beaten tracks and he is someone who has something to say. His book is one of the rare books in philosophy which has both breadth and depth at one and the same time' - Ilham Dilman, Philosophical Investigations
'The trenchant beauty of the discussion, the courage and independence of the mind at work, are a magnificent accomplishment.' - Andrew Gleeson, Philosophical Books
'An absorbing read from beginning to end ... A quite exceptional work.' - Tim Crane, Central European University, Austria
'A wise and beautifully written book. It is a wonderful example of how philosophy can still speak without any condescension to the educated reader.' - Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research, USA
'A wonderful piece of writing. The disciplined individuality of Gaita's voice shows how a humanly serious practice of philosophy might make a decisive contribution to our public culture.' - Stephen Mulhall, University of Oxford, UK
ISBN: 9781032912295
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
368 pages