Honors/The Copernican Lens: Finding a Place for Humanity

Catalog description

How do humans fit into the cosmos? Once, we thought we were central players; most human societies believed they played a starring role, second only to the gods. Developments in the sciences have led modern humanity to a far more modest view: our existence is full of contingency and without cosmic significance. Humanity's self-conception is now recognized to be deeply culturally conditioned: is an objective view of humanity's place even possible?.