Book Talk: Living Without God by Ron Aronson March 20, 2009

Please join us as Ronald Aronson presents his new book, Living without God. In Living without God, Aronson picks up where the writers---Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens---he named "The New Atheists" (in Bookforum) leave off, turning to face the need for a coherent and contemporary secular philosophy that will answer life's vital questions. As Aronson argues, living without God means turning toward something. Grounded in the sense that we are dependent and interconnected beings, rooted in nature, history and society, Living without God explores contemporary answers to Immanuel Kant's three great questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope? Aronson stresses how much knowledge humans have accumulated, verified, confirmed, and implemented: dozens, hundreds, thousands of things that are vital for human understanding and wellbeing. Today so much that was once cloaked in darkness is known, and so much that is really essential to our lives is knowable. We have developed methods of analysis, synthesis, and reasoning that can be taught and learned. All of this is now part of what John Dewey called the "social consciousness of the race" and it belongs to all of us, waiting to be claimed and used. We sell ourselves short to pretend otherwise.

Ronald Aronson grew up in Detroit and was educated at Wayne State University, U.C.L.A., the University of Michigan, and Brandeis University, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Ideas. He has taught at Wayne State University since 1968. He is now Distinguished Professor of the History of Ideas in the Department of History. Winner of several scholarly and teaching awards at Wayne State, Aronson is the past president of its Academy of Scholars.

$10 for general public. Free for Friends of Center.

Official Website: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/sf/events/cfisf_ron_aronson/