Publisher's Synopsis
Man's natural sociality is explained by the quest for the meaning of his existence, revealed in the dialectical unfolding of action. Indeed, the study of action is an answer to the question: "Yes or no, does life have a meaning, and does man have a destiny"?Building on action, or rather on the constitutional indigence of action, Maurice Blondel gradually rises to the divine, to the God of the Christian and Catholic faith. The human being feels and even behaves, perhaps unwittingly, as a link in a chain of acts that began before him and without him, but continue in him and through him. Society is another link in this chain.In so doing, it cannot be understood if we cut it off from its infrahuman underside and its transcendent topside. It is at once a work of nature and reason, determinism and freedom, each bearing the imprint of the divine.So if man is necessarily a "political animal", how can we explain his anti-social attitudes and practices, such as dictatorship, slavery, conflict and war? What is the appropriate solution to this existential problem?
