The Distinction of Human Being

Download or read book The Distinction of Human Being written by Thomas K. Caplan and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation What is the distinction of human being? No idea? Many ideas? The succinct answer to that question has, in fact, been known to thinkers and doers for thousands of years; although this our unique distinction, the enigma of its being both one and several, has been conceptualized and celebrated again and again by our predecessors in the richly vibrant idiom of philosophical, religious, and poetic discourse to which each successive age of our cultural tradition has made its own enduring contribution, many of the distinguished terms that were spoken and heard with the most solemn reverence then would seem, today, to have all but lost their power to touch the human heart, making thus a profound mystery of what was formerly an open secret, the secret of our self-several destiny as determined by the ideas of entity, deity, and humanity. Is not our rightful task who find ourselves this side of a tradition that has long since pinnacled to completion above all to undertake the collection and recollection of these terms of regard for what has been accomplished and set down in moving trains of thought, so startling, so provoking, that it is only in and through them that we might truly learn to receive in gratitude and, with discernment, to grasp the extent of the obligation accruing to those whose sole birthright is a heritage of fundamental principles, those ideas that are deep, simple, inexhaustible, patient, human - dare we name them even divine? Perhaps the recognition and acknowledgement of these ancient terms - their community and the community of their communities - that at one time had made all the difference in the world is the one true vocation left to us; perhaps they presage the recovery of a mission to call our own that will grant us the power and the right to draw a distinction not just in human but in all being.