"On Being Human" and "Pleasure and Pain"
Two Humanistic Works

43.00

It describes the specific human capacities for reflective thought and declarative language, and it discusses the unique ability of humans to devise culture and question origins. Pleasure and Pain considers the interdependence of human pleasure and pain. This idea, which leads to unnecessary fears and unwarranted expectations, goes unrecognized in a contemporary western society focused on the accumulation of pleasure without any awareness of the duality of the pleasure-pain experience. Kinget refutes the widespread fallacy that fun lies in the means, when it actually lies in the subject, and she discusses the human potential for autonomous "management" of the pleasure-pain dimension of human existence.

chapter 1 On Being Human: Introduction chapter 2 Homo Symbolicus chapter 3 Culture Maker chapter 4 Toward Delight: Play, Love, and Beauty chapter 5 Freedom, Responsibility chapter 6 Man Transcending chapter 7 Epilogue chapter 8 Bibliography chapter 9 Acknowledgments and Copyrights chapter 10 Index chapter 11 Pleasure and Pain: Janus-Faced Algedonia chapter 12 Affective Management for Effective Living chapter 13 Pleasure as Product vs. Pleasure as By-Product chapter 14 "The Laws of Levity and the laws of Gravity" chapter 15 "Can We Survive the Fun-Explosion?" chapter 16 Pleasure Resides in the Subject, Not in the Object chapter 17 "You Owe it to Yourself" chapter 18 What of Pain chapter 19 Conclusion chapter 20 Bibliography