PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
Toward a Science Charged with Faith
Chapter 5 of God and Science
by Charles P. Henderson
It was at the height of his career in paleontology while he was studying bones and fossils in northern China (in 1927) that Teilhard wrote what he called "a little book on piety" designed to convey both the sincerity and the orthodoxy of his faith to his superiors in Rome. In this book Teilhard speaks of The Divine Milieu and by its very title suggests his theme: the whole material world as the setting for a profound, mystical vision of God. It is in the world itself, as it is seen through the eyes of science, that the workings of God are most apparent. Teilhard's writing is graphic and unrestrained:
All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and below, we have only to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through. But it is not only close to us, in front of us, that the divine presence has revealed itself. It has sprung up universally, and we find ourselves so surrounded and transfixed by it, that there is no room left to fall down and adore it, even within ourselves.
By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers. In eo vivimus. As Jacob said, awakening from his dream, the world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus.(1)
Needless to say writing like this did not reassure the religious authorities in Rome, for Teilhard affirmed the material world as a source of mystical illumination. Though Teilhard did not directly criticize any specific doctrines of the church in his little book of piety, this work constitutes an assault upon the skeletal supports of traditional theology. Teilhard was just as provocative when he was trying to reassure as when he was trying to stir up debate. Early on, he describes his book in two sentences which were intended to convey the modesty of his position but in reality contained a theological time bomb:
http://www.godweb.org/chardin.htm
Showing posts with label manuel delanda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manuel delanda. Show all posts
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
AutoPoietics on the 'Net psybernetics autopoiesis
http://beat.doebe.li/bibliothek/p00001.html
http://autopoietic.net/
Journal of Autopoietic Theory
Associated with the Autopoiesis Email list at autopoiesis-dialognet@yahoogroups.com
Subject Areas of Interest: Autopoiesis, Reflexivity, Emergence; Biology of Cognition; Existential Biology, Sociology and Psychology; Self/(Other)-organization, Self/(Other)-production, Dissipative Ordering Structures, Negative Entropy, Living Systems, Consciousness, Sociality; also apoptosis, allopoiesis, autonomy, closure, observer, cognition, structure, semiotics, cybernetics of all orders, complexity/simplicity, order/chaos/disorder, complex adaptive systems and all subjects listed in ENCYCLOPAEDIA AUTOPOIETICA as well as applications to far from equlibrium thermodynamics, biology of cells and organisms and studies of consciousness, psyche, society, and other related fields. Also the mathematical, scientific and philosophical foundations of systems theory, meta-systems theory or any special systems theories.
Related to the work of Maturana, Humberto R. and Varela, Francisco J. (1946 - 2001) but also related work by others such as Luhmann, Niklas; Rosen, Robert; Beer, Stafford; Bateson, Gregory; Kampis, George; Goertzel, Benjamin; Prigogine, Ilya; Kauffman, Stuart and others.
See Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., 1996 and 1997 The Web of Life, Doubleday, New York, 1996 and 1997
See J Mingers, 1995 Self-Producing Systems: The Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis Plenum Press, New York, pp 246, ISBN 0306447975
See Maturana, Humberto R. and Varela, Francisco J. 1980 Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland; Boston, USA, London, England
AutoPoietics on the 'Net psybernetics autopoiesis
http://beat.doebe.li/bibliothek/p00001.html
http://autopoietic.net/
Journal of Autopoietic Theory
Associated with the Autopoiesis Email list at autopoiesis-dialognet@yahoogroups.com
Subject Areas of Interest: Autopoiesis, Reflexivity, Emergence; Biology of Cognition; Existential Biology, Sociology and Psychology; Self/(Other)-organization, Self/(Other)-production, Dissipative Ordering Structures, Negative Entropy, Living Systems, Consciousness, Sociality; also apoptosis, allopoiesis, autonomy, closure, observer, cognition, structure, semiotics, cybernetics of all orders, complexity/simplicity, order/chaos/disorder, complex adaptive systems and all subjects listed in ENCYCLOPAEDIA AUTOPOIETICA as well as applications to far from equlibrium thermodynamics, biology of cells and organisms and studies of consciousness, psyche, society, and other related fields. Also the mathematical, scientific and philosophical foundations of systems theory, meta-systems theory or any special systems theories.
Related to the work of Maturana, Humberto R. and Varela, Francisco J. (1946 - 2001) but also related work by others such as Luhmann, Niklas; Rosen, Robert; Beer, Stafford; Bateson, Gregory; Kampis, George; Goertzel, Benjamin; Prigogine, Ilya; Kauffman, Stuart and others.
See Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., 1996 and 1997 The Web of Life, Doubleday, New York, 1996 and 1997
See J Mingers, 1995 Self-Producing Systems: The Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis Plenum Press, New York, pp 246, ISBN 0306447975
See Maturana, Humberto R. and Varela, Francisco J. 1980 Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland; Boston, USA, London, England
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
DeLanda! new book out > New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory And Social Complexity
Manuel DeLanda, name change to delanda?!
DeLanda is a Second Generation non-French theorist of Deleuze. See also Claire Colebrook.
An Amazon Reader:
The Best Introduction to Deleuze, March 11, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
This is an extraodinary book: an astonishingly lucid and well-organized introduction to Deleuze's philosophical project. Most of the secondary literature on Deleuze is simply unhelpful, because it presumes that the reader already grasps Deleuze's tremendously difficult ontological project and terminology. Colebrook begins at the begining, taking the time to explain and define key terms (the virtual, singularity, intensity, affect, becoming, immanence, etc.) and offers rich illustrations of these concepts via literature and film.
http://www.amazon.com/Gilles-Deleuze-Routledge-Critical-Thinkers/dp/0415246342
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