Book Celebration: Life’s Biggest Questions with David Benatar - College of Charleston Libraries
Life’s Biggest Questions
A Conversation with David Benatar
Thursday, September 7, 2017 | 6:00 p.m. | Addlestone Library Room 227
FREE and Open to the Public
“David Benatar’s new book, The Human Predicament, offers justifiably pessimistic analyses of some of the most interesting and important issues of human existence, including birth, suffering, death, and suicide. Benatar’s analyses are as beautifully crafted and written as they are scholarly and thoughtful. The Human Predicament is a grand work of philosophy, but contains important insights for many of the social and life sciences, including psychology, sociology, biology, as well as to medicine and law. Not only will I recommend this book to my colleagues and graduate and undergraduate students, but I also will recommend it to my family and friends. The Human Predicament is a stunning achievement by a deeply compassionate man.”
— Todd Shackleford, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology, Oakland University
The Friends of the Library are pleased to host a presentation by David Benatar, author of The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 7, in Addlestone Library’s Room 227.
Are our lives meaningful or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortality be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our deaths by suicide?
It is difficult to imagine a thinking person who does not, at least sometimes, ponder these and other of life’s biggest questions.
Dr. Benatar’s presentation will provide a candid guide to answering them, and thereby to living life without illusions – but not without humor, healthy doses of which will pepper the talk.
Copies of The Human Predicament will be available for purchase and signing following the presentation. Free and open to the public, registration is not required for the presentation. Reviews of The Human Predicament may be found here.
David Benatar is Professor and Head of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and the author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford, 2006), The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012); and The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions (Oxford, 2017).
About the Friends of the Library
The College of Charleston’s Friends of the Library supports lively, thought-provoking events on issues of the day. From the Faculty Lecture Series to the Winthrop Roundtable, FOL provides opportunities for lifelong learning that strengthens our campus community, as well as the Charleston community at-large. Our annual schedule of events connects the library with world-class partners within the College of Charleston, and with people from across the Lowcountry and beyond.
Dr. Benatar’s presentation is co-sponsored by Oxford University Press.
