Book Review: The Treatise on Human Nature - Sumirasko
The Treatise on Human Nature by Sumirasko is above all a monumental work on human life on birth and death. It is a reflection imbued with strong cognitive demands. And, at the same time, it is a thought that, instead of hiding itself in a system, turns its entire conceptual apparatus to human beings.
Faced with this immense subject, Sumirasko stands as an investigator in front of an enigma. He looks for the key, the clarifying element and seeks a force as extensive and powerful. It is so lively as to break all skeptical arguments, and to correctly guide the intellect in its exercise.
In this work, Sumirasko deals with human nature, combined with Eastern and Western thoughts. In the text, the author leads a critique of the key concepts of existence right from Dionysian times. It combines with thoughts and discourses of scholars from middle ages to the modern age. Everything is traced back to the wisdom on life and death and the concepts. Those that were imparted by philosophical beings like Leo Tolstoy, William Blake, Ramkrishna Paramhansa to Ernest Hemingway and T.E. Lawrence.
Who am I? Today's man is desperate for an answer to the question. It is a unique and unrepeatable subject with an unmistakable and personal experience of life. In other words, the question of the nature of the human person is at the centre of interest.
In this sense, the words with which the author describes the project of his work are eloquent. It will not be a study of the act that presupposes the person, as we adopt another direction of experience and understanding. Instead, it will be a study of the act that reveals the person; study of the person through the act. In this work, Sumirasko establishes a close link between anthropology and the theory of action and ethics. He invites his readers therefore to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge that is typical of modernity.
The question of the identity of the human person is dealt with starting from an analysis of the experience. The book consists of fifteen chapters. It deals with anthropological and metaphysical themes on existence, life, and death. Each of these chapters constitutes a treatise in itself. They offer a broad overview of current and classical philosophical discussion.
There is a philosophical thesis, which runs through the various chapters of the book. Facing several key concepts of anthropology and metaethics, Sumirasko constantly suggests that both bare and raw naturalistic objectivism and relativist subjectivism should be avoided. Man is by nature a historical and communal animal who has a generative relationship identity. By virtue of these characteristics, any analysis of human nature in purely objectivist or subjectivist terms remains always reductive, and insufficient.
In this review one cannot summarize all the content, that is too rich, of the various chapters. We limit ourselves to indicating only the fundamental lines. The anthropological part of the book has a paradigmatic function. Sumirasko uses this term, not in an empiricist sense. It is rather to indicate the supreme form of knowledge as a synonym of traditional wisdom.
Man cannot become aware of who he is if he is not recognized by others. In this regard, Sumirasko emphasizes that the concept of human nature is not opposed to the concept of reason and culture. On the one hand, there is no human nature not embodied in a certain culture. On the other hand, it is true that nature is a measure of the concrete cultural form. The various cultural forms can be assessed on the basis of their foundation that is, based on nature.
There is a constant tension of the author to a unified vision of reality. The different themes are analyzed, one after the other, taking into account the whole. It is always the same light that illuminates the different areas of reality. That it is always the same light does not mean that it is an ideological, prejudicial gaze.
What saves Sumirasko from this danger is the ever new attention to detail. There is the tension to learn from many thinkers and the difficulty of evaluating problems from many points of view. What is the vainest struggle that a human being can undertake, if not the struggle against his own inclinations and therefore against himself?
There is no peace and above all, there is no winner. It is for those who in order to comply with the expectations of others and by virtue of a rigid preconstituted respectability, denies their character until the most impure unhappiness is reached, the one that invariably spreads.
This is an intimate book, treated with a very delicate prose. It is imbued with reflections that guide the reader in understanding the existential torment, for the unnatural fatigue of the fight against ourselves, but also in the passive torment, and of the moral rigors of our time.
The book is a unique and intense epistolary confession. It is so profound and authentic that it seeks to re-embody the sense of a human life. There is a sense left to the mercy of the words that betray the thought for their brevity and that for the need they have to simplify what is most profound.
Format: Hardcover ♥ Pages: 279 ♥ Publisher: Cyberwit ♥ Published: 29 May 2017 ♥ Language: English ♥ ISBN-13: 978-9385945977
Faced with this immense subject, Sumirasko stands as an investigator in front of an enigma. He looks for the key, the clarifying element and seeks a force as extensive and powerful. It is so lively as to break all skeptical arguments, and to correctly guide the intellect in its exercise.
In this work, Sumirasko deals with human nature, combined with Eastern and Western thoughts. In the text, the author leads a critique of the key concepts of existence right from Dionysian times. It combines with thoughts and discourses of scholars from middle ages to the modern age. Everything is traced back to the wisdom on life and death and the concepts. Those that were imparted by philosophical beings like Leo Tolstoy, William Blake, Ramkrishna Paramhansa to Ernest Hemingway and T.E. Lawrence.
Who am I? Today's man is desperate for an answer to the question. It is a unique and unrepeatable subject with an unmistakable and personal experience of life. In other words, the question of the nature of the human person is at the centre of interest.
In this sense, the words with which the author describes the project of his work are eloquent. It will not be a study of the act that presupposes the person, as we adopt another direction of experience and understanding. Instead, it will be a study of the act that reveals the person; study of the person through the act. In this work, Sumirasko establishes a close link between anthropology and the theory of action and ethics. He invites his readers therefore to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge that is typical of modernity.
The question of the identity of the human person is dealt with starting from an analysis of the experience. The book consists of fifteen chapters. It deals with anthropological and metaphysical themes on existence, life, and death. Each of these chapters constitutes a treatise in itself. They offer a broad overview of current and classical philosophical discussion.
There is a philosophical thesis, which runs through the various chapters of the book. Facing several key concepts of anthropology and metaethics, Sumirasko constantly suggests that both bare and raw naturalistic objectivism and relativist subjectivism should be avoided. Man is by nature a historical and communal animal who has a generative relationship identity. By virtue of these characteristics, any analysis of human nature in purely objectivist or subjectivist terms remains always reductive, and insufficient.
In this review one cannot summarize all the content, that is too rich, of the various chapters. We limit ourselves to indicating only the fundamental lines. The anthropological part of the book has a paradigmatic function. Sumirasko uses this term, not in an empiricist sense. It is rather to indicate the supreme form of knowledge as a synonym of traditional wisdom.
There is a constant tension of the author to a unified vision of reality. The different themes are analyzed, one after the other, taking into account the whole. It is always the same light that illuminates the different areas of reality. That it is always the same light does not mean that it is an ideological, prejudicial gaze.
What saves Sumirasko from this danger is the ever new attention to detail. There is the tension to learn from many thinkers and the difficulty of evaluating problems from many points of view. What is the vainest struggle that a human being can undertake, if not the struggle against his own inclinations and therefore against himself?
There is no peace and above all, there is no winner. It is for those who in order to comply with the expectations of others and by virtue of a rigid preconstituted respectability, denies their character until the most impure unhappiness is reached, the one that invariably spreads.
This is an intimate book, treated with a very delicate prose. It is imbued with reflections that guide the reader in understanding the existential torment, for the unnatural fatigue of the fight against ourselves, but also in the passive torment, and of the moral rigors of our time.
The book is a unique and intense epistolary confession. It is so profound and authentic that it seeks to re-embody the sense of a human life. There is a sense left to the mercy of the words that betray the thought for their brevity and that for the need they have to simplify what is most profound.
Format: Hardcover ♥ Pages: 279 ♥ Publisher: Cyberwit ♥ Published: 29 May 2017 ♥ Language: English ♥ ISBN-13: 978-9385945977
Kalyan Panja
Kalyan Panja is a photographer and a travel writer sharing stories and experiences through photographs and words
