Toward a Metaphysical Anthropology

Predrag Cicovacki (College of the Holy Cross)

The School of Sanskrit, Philosophy and Indic Studies (SSPIS) at Goa University cordially invites you to the online guest lecture titled "Toward a Metaphysical Anthropology" by Prof. Predrag Cicovacki, (Professor Emeritus,  Department of Philosophy,  College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA). Kindly join us on 19 September 2025 (Friday) from 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM IST at meet.google.com/meq-pgaw-qbv

Abstract 

After years of struggling with how to provide a needed structure for a philosophical examination of what it means to be and live like a human being, I have come to believe that we should organize it around four pillars of human existence: personality, values, interactions, and transcendence. In a nutshell, these pillars deal with the following issues: 
1. Personality, which centers on the problem of identity: how can we integrate our general humanity with our irreplaceable uniqueness? 
2. Values, which are concerned with the problem of orientation: how to find our way in the complex flow of reality? What is right and what is wrong, and how can we tell them apart? 
3. Interactions, which deal with the problem of community, with living together, through exchanges and common rituals: how can we form societies that are not mere aggregates of people? 
4. Transcendence, which boils down to our commitments: What are our ultimate bonds? What do we hold as most sacred? I call this novel and ambitious project “metaphysical anthropology.” It is not an attempt to establish a new philosophical discipline (like “philosophical anthropology”) but to outline a new paradigm of a reflective and responsible, interactive and creative life. 
In my lecture, I want to explain these four pillars and outline how metaphysical anthropology aims to find out not the truth about human beings but the truth of being human. 

Bio 

Prof Predrag Cicovacki is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, Massachusetts, USA), and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK). He is the author of thirteen books, among which are: Gandhi’s Footprints; Barefoot in Benares; God, Man, and Tolstoy; and The Meaning of Life: A Quick Immersion. In the 2012-13 academic year, Professor Cicovacki was a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru fellowship of the American and Indian governments for a study and research project in India. He is currently working on a four-book project (Personality, Interactions, Values, and Transcendence) that should serve as a foundation of metaphysical anthropology.