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Global Perspectives on Science and Religion
Pranab Das (Author)
9781599473390
Paperback / softback, published 15 October 2009
240 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.666 kg
Gathering thinkers from ten countries and various scientific and spiritual backgrounds, Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality leads readers on a fascinating tour of distinctly non-Western approaches to topics in these two fields. These voices add fresh and invigorating input to a dialogue that has thus far been predominantly guided by scholars from the United States or Western Europe. The award-winning researchers in this volume were selected from a pool of over one hundred and fifty applications. They offer the very best scholarship from underrepresented regions around the globe. The essays cover a broad spectrum of scientific fields, spanning mathematical physics, robotics, biosemiotics and other new schools of theoretical biology, embryonic stem cells, cognitive science, and the concept of opening the human mind to broader ideas of reality. Hailing from some of the top research institutions in India, Japan, Russia, Korea, China, and a variety of Eastern European nations, contributors offer unique insights into their cultures' spiritual and philosophical traditions. At the same time, they deftly engage concepts from the ongoing Western dialogue in its terms, delving deeply, at times, into schools of thought like phenomenology or process thought. Scholars, students, researchers, and anyone seeking new ways of understanding the interplay of spirituality and science will discover a multitude of windows into previously underexplored research areas in these truly interdisciplinary essays. Indeed, any of these pieces could serve as the basis for entirely new long-term study programs.
Preface / vii Introduction / ix 1. The Puzzle of Consciousness and Experiential Primacy: Agency in Cognitive Sciences and Spiritual Experiences / 3 2. Religion, Science, and Lebenswelt: New Interdisciplinary Crossroads / 21 3. Science and Spirituality in Modern India / 39 4. Kokoro [Mind-Heart-Spirit]: Affirming Science and Religion in the Japanese Context / 55 5. Daoism and the Uncertainty Principle / 69 6. Whitehead Reconsidered from a Buddhist Perspective / 93 7. Sanctity of Life: A Reflection on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debates from an East Asian Perspective / 107 8. Aut Moses, Aut Darwin? / 125 9. Human Origins: Continuous Evolution versus Punctual Creation / 143 10. Mathematics as a Formal Ontology: The Hermeneutical Dimensions of Natural Sciences and Eastern Patristics / 165 11. Is Mathematics Able to Open the Systems of the Human Intellect? / 179 12. On the Role of Transcendence in Science and in Religion / 191 Contributors / 207 Index / 213
Pranab Das Elon University, United States
Sangeetha Menon National Institute of Advanced Studies, India
Ilya Kasavin Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Makarand Paranjape Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
Paul Swanson Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Japan
Jiang Sheng Shandong University, China
Ryusei Takeda Ryukoku University, Japan
Heup Young Kim Kangnam University, South Korea
A. MarkoŠ, F. Grygar, L. Hajnal, K. Kleisner, Z. KratochvÍl, and Z. Neubauer Charles University, Czech Republic
Grzegorz Bugajak and Jacek Tomczyk Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Poland
Alexei Chernyakov S t. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy, Russia
Botond GaÁl Debrecen Reformed Theological University, Hungary
Ladislav Kvasz Catholic University in Rozomberok, Slovakia