Measuring the Horizon: Objectivity, Subjectivity and the Dignity of Human Personal Identity

Francis J. Ambrosio, Elisabetta Lanzilao

Department of Liberal Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA.
Department of Philosophy, Georgetown Uni, Washington, DC, USA;Department of Liberal Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/ojpp.2013.34A006                

Abstract

It is argued in what follows that “culture warfare” is symptomatic of an imminent threat to the continued sustainability of human culture as a whole. The nature of this threat can be characterized as trauma induced paralysis of the human cultural imagination, without which cooperative adaptation to potential credible dangers of self-induced species or even planetary life extinction is impossible. The structure of this paradoxical “possible impossibility” as the destiny of humanity is examined here within the context of an interpretive framework which is broadly characterized as “cultural genetics”. On the basis of a schematic and preliminary outline of that framework, a suggestion is made regarding the direction in which hope of avoiding that destiny might be sought.

Keywords

Quantity; Quality; Objectivity; Subjectivity; Worldview; Culture-War; Hero; Saint; Secular Saint; Cartesian Anxiety; Meaningful; Freedom; Responsibility

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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