English world rights (Georgetown UP), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People’s Publishing House), France (Labor et Fides), Italy (Franco Angeli), Croatia (Breza)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish rights Latin America (UNSAM), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP)
»What are the origins of the idea of human rights and universal human dignity? How can we most fully understand—and realize—these rights going into the future? In The Sacredness of the Person, internationally renowned sociologist and social theorist Hans Joas tells a story that differs from conventional narratives by tracing the concept of human rights back to the Judeo-Christian tradition or, alternately, to the secular French Enlightenment. While drawing on...
»What are the origins of the idea of human rights and universal human dignity? How can we most fully understand—and realize—these rights going into the future? In The Sacredness of the Person, internationally renowned sociologist and social theorist Hans Joas tells a story that differs from conventional narratives by tracing the concept of human rights back to the Judeo-Christian tradition or, alternately, to the secular French Enlightenment. While drawing on sociologists such as Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas sets out a new path, proposing an affirmative genealogy in which human rights are the result of a process of ›sacralization‹ of every human being.
According to Joas, every single human being has increasingly been viewed as sacred. He discusses the abolition of torture and slavery, once common practice in the pre-18th century west, as two milestones in modern human history. The author concludes by portraying the emergence of the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 as a successful process of value generalization. Joas demonstrates that the history of human rights cannot adequately be described as a history of ideas or as legal history, but as a complex transformation in which diverse cultural traditions had to be articulated, legally codified, and assimilated into practices of everyday life. The sacralization of the person and universal human rights will only be secure in the future, warns Joas, through continued support by institutions and society, vigorous discourse in their defense, and their incarnation in everyday life and practice.« (book desription of the English edition by Georgetown University Press)
»This important book by Hans Joas presents a valuable and well-balanced account of how the notions of human dignity and human rights were born out of the mutually inspiring combination of secular and religious thought, interpretation, and action.« Süddeutsche Zeitung
»A profound book […] that demonstrates the patience and tenacity needed to develop thoughts and present them not only clearly but elegantly.« Otfried Höffe, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Hans Joas, born in 1948, is the Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin and professor of sociology and social thought at the University of Chicago.
Hans Joas, born in 1948, is the Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin and professor of...
How do the history of religion and the history of political freedom relate to one another? The diversity of opinions on this in the fields of philosophy, the humanities and social sciences and in...
English world rights (Oxford UP), Spanish world rights (Loyola)
»Disenchantment is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the...
English world rights (Oxford UP), Spanish world rights (Herder), France (Seuil), Netherlands (Lemniscaat), Hungary (Gondolat)
»Public and intellectual debates have long struggled with the concept of values and the difficulties of defining them. With The Genesis of Values, renowned theorist Hans Joas...
English world rights (University of Chicago Press), Spanish world rights (Pólvora), Russia (Aletheia), France (Calmann-Lévy), Italy (Quodlibet), Poland (Oficyna Naukowa)
»Hans Joas is one of the foremost social theorists in Germany today. In this outstanding book he outlines the fundamentals of a new theory of action, drawing on philosophical pragmatism. The...
English world rights (Polity), Russia (Aletheia)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (CIS), France (Cerf), Korea (Hanul)
»This major study reassesses the work of the American pragmatist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), which had a significant impact in fields ranging from metaphysics and ethics to...
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (MIT Press), France (Economica)