![]() ![]() ![]() Humanism suggests that we are members of an intelligent and sociable species who can act according to our will while connecting the well-being of other members with our own. Discussing humanism in dialogue with other systems, Todorov finds a response to the predicament of modernity that is far more instructive than any offered by conservatism, scientific determinism, existential individualism, or humanism's other contemporary competitors. Each chapter considers humanism's approach to one major theme of human existence: liberty, social life, love, self, morality, and expression. Todorov reads afresh the works of major humanists-primarily Montaigne, Rousseau, and Constant, but also Descartes, Montesquieu, and Toqueville. Through his critical but sympathetic excavation of humanism, Tzvetan Todorov seeks an answer to modernity's fundamental challenge: how to maintain our hard-won liberty without paying too dearly in social ties, common values, and a coherent and responsible sense of self. In it, one of France's most prominent intellectuals explores the foundations, limits, and possibilities of humanist thinking. ![]() Available in English for the first time, Imperfect Garden is both an approachable intellectual history and a bracing treatise on how we should understand and experience our lives. ![]()
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