NDPR John Cottingham The Humane Perspective: Philosophical Reflections on Human Nature, the Search for Meaning, and the Role of Religion

0 views

Skip to first unread message

ndpr...@nd.edu

unread,

Jan 22, 2026, 4:07:17 PM (13 days ago) Jan 22

to philosophical...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2026.01.3 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

John Cottingham, The Humane Perspective: Philosophical Reflections on Human Nature, the Search for Meaning, and the Role of Religion, Oxford University Press, 2024, 256pp., $90.00 (hbk) ISBN 9780198918912.

Reviewed by John Bishop, University of Auckland

This book collects a selection of John Cottingham’s papers published over the previous fifteen years. They deal with broad issues in moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion, the meaning of life, and the limits of scientific understanding. Though in some papers it remains in the background, Cottingham’s underlying and guiding theme is advocacy for a religious, indeed a theist, worldview. Cottingham’s advocacy for theism is different in style and method from the approaches that have been dominant in analytic philosophy of religion. That difference in style and method provides the occasion for this book, namely to make the case...