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The post-secular convergence of science and religion
A philosophical prognosis
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Vasil Penchev
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences:Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge:Dept. of Logical Systems and [email protected]
“Religion in a Secular Society. Challenges and Perspectives”International conference
June 19-20, 2017“Ovidius” University of Constanta (Romania)
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Prehistory and background
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Religion vs. science: history
• The outbreak of science in the modern age in West Europe was accompanied by the most violent confrontation of religion (first of all, catholic Christianity in Europe) and science
oThe latter wanted emancipation and freedom • Two significant events, both stake of Giordano Bruno
and forced renunciation of Galileo, symbolize that fight and liberation
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Science vs. religion: principles• Furthermore, almost all principles of science and religion
contradict to each other: o For example:
• Causality versus supernatural miracles o Doubt, skepticism and criticism versus belief
• Experience and experiments versus authority and mana o Many scientific tractata versus one Bible
• Tradition versus development o Etc. and etc.
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Science vs religion: the picture of the world
• Each of them built an own picture of the world, absolutely inconsistent to the other
o The methods or approaches of the one refuted the contribution of the other fundamentally
• Nonetheless, both managed to dominate society and people, the separated human beings
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My motivation
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About me …
• Anyway, I am a scientist rather than a theologian and my viewpoint will be from the science
o However, I hope a dialog with theologians• I do not belong to that large group of scientists tended to
reject religion initially and fundamentally as wrong, false, misleading, and primitive
o Nevertheless, I self-determine myself as an atheist
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Science and religion
• I think both science and religion are two great achievements of humankind, thougho They might join and unify their efforts and approaches in a
whole much bigger than the sum separately• To take place that, they should overcome the age-old
hostility and mutual misunderstandingo I intend my presentation as a quite, quite modest and
humble gesture in that direction
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The position of philosophy in that conflict
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The intermediate position of philosophy• Philosophy maintained, supported, and kept a more or less neutral
position o A few parts of it were closer to religion (e.g. the so-called
continental philosophy nowadays), others to science (e.g. analytical one)
• In thus, it was that “neutral state”, where “peaceful talks” could have taken place anywayo Philosophy is strongly interested in that peace treaty and future cooperation for its role and importance would increase sharply as
the field of dialog, mutual understanding, translation, and reinterpretation for science and religion
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Problem
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Problem
Shall the confrontation and divergence of science and religion conserve in the close or far future?
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Theses
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Theses: 1 Science and religion• The real emancipation and liberation of science nowadays tends to
the dialog of science and religion o Both contain elements and doctrines (theories in science) allowing
of reconciliation and joint efforts for a common and much more generalized viewpoint to the world
• Those propensities activate and develop the corresponding doctrines and theories and deactivate the rest, especially in religion o So, whether religion or science influences or even conditions the
change of the other• Ecumenism and the unification of religions can be extended even to
scientific atheism
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Theses: 2 Post-secularization
• Post-secularization can be defined as the historic period in which the secular views are emancipated and liberated absolutely. o They are equal to any religious ones, without claiming any
superiority or monopole of truth• Particularly, science and religion, both being able to be
considered as post-secular as far as both belong to that historic period, tend to converge
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Prognosis on that convergence from the viewpoint of philosophy
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About a “peace treaty” of science and religion
• The option of “peace treaty” of science and religion seems possible at last, in the global and more and more globalizing world obeying informational technologies and thus information o Information, being a scientific concept, can be reinterpreted
as the “spirit” or as a fundamental spiritual element underlying the material world studied by science
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About a “separate peace treaty” within philosophy
• Philosophy can assist that process in many ways, one of them would be a small or “separate peace treaty” of the continental and analytic philosophy
o It would increase its role of mediator for the confrontation of science and religion to be overcome in
the close or far future
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An example: the instructions of Feynman’s pathways interpretation of quantum mechanics for philosophy
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Feynman’s interpretation of quantum mechanics
• Quantum mechanics was forced to resolve the problem of how to describe uniformly both discrete and continuous motion. Its mathematical formalism is the separable complex Hilbert space
o Feynman suggested an equivalent interpretation generalizing the discrete motion as if in all possible
trajectories, each of which with different probability
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Hodology• Hodology is the defined as the research of pathways in
a broad, abstract and generalized senseo For example, it may include counterfactual analysis, e.g. in
history or comparative analysis of different approaches toa shared aim
• One may generalize Feynman’s interpretation “hodologically” as a formalized methodology for hodologyo After that, the equivalence of the jump-like insight inherent
for religious cognition and the continuous and causal method of science can be seen in turn as similar to
Feynman’s approach generalized hodologically now
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Religious cognition by means of scientific cognition
• Then, the cognition by religious experience can be both justified by, and decomposed into a fan distribution of alternative scientific theories or disciplines inconsistent, irrelevant or contradictory to each other o Each of them would represent the religious cognition
only probably, in a single “hodos”, pathway, but achievable by a reliable and causal method repeatable
by many others
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Religion cognition and practices
• On the contrary, religious cognition is fundamentally random. o It cannot be linked to any definite method and even to any
certain religion • The origin of different religions or religious practices should
be searched for in different traditions and societies representing in turn different religious pathways rather than in the essence of religious cognition by itself
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A philosophical idea about theologyas a rigorous science
• One may generalize Husserl’s idea about “philosophy as a rigorous science” on his “phenomenon” identifying form and content, to religious cognition defined consistently and linked to scienceo In fact, philosophy would coincide with theology after form
and content are identified to each other• “Philosophy as a rigorous science” is theology in essenceo Spiritual reality researched by theology is therefore that realm
which may be defined philosophically by the identification of form and content, or as Husserl’s “phenomenology”
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Conclusions
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Conclusions:
• Post-secularization: science and religion are equalo Convergence of science and religion: they might share aims
and approaches as well as assist each other• Philosophy as a mediator: it may facilitate the mutual
understanding and interpretation of science and religiono Generalizing Husserl’s idea about philosophy to “theology as
a rigorous science”• Extending the unification of religions to science: it can
include even scientific atheism
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Vă mulțumesc pentru atenție!
Salut întrebările!