Man and Values: A Personalist Anthropology

There are two ways in which we can be taught by others. On the one hand, a person who knows something we do not seeks to bring us into possession of that knowledge. On the other hand, a far more difficult task, the teacher enables us to recognize what we already know. The second method can be called the Socratic, and it characterizes the book you are about to read.

From the very opening pages, the reader senses that he is being addressed by a wise man. Nonetheless, he is being addressed as an equal. Cormac Burke has developed what he calls an anthropology of freedom, a personalist anthropology. The great accomplishment of his book is that the reader ends by realizing that he already holds that anthropology. In a subtle mix of uncovering the obvious and displaying the untenability of alternatives, Burke enables the reader to see that, whatever he might have said on the level of chatter, deep down he has convictions about what it is to be a human being.

From the Preface by Ralph McInerny