Articles by Eric Weislogel
Articles originally published by the Metanexus Institute
(NOTE: Metanexus is currently updating its website, and not all articles may be available at the present time.)
Sometimes at Metanexus we say that we’re after ‘the whole story of the whole cosmos for the whole person.’ We say it… because the whole story is more like our motivating hope…. It’s what gets us up and moving in the morning¦. Let me quickly say that the whole story is impossible. It’s not just that we do not happen to have the whole story…. No. The whole story is impossible.
Introduction to 2007 Metanexus Conference
Metanexus is an institute, a movement, and an idea. As a member-supported institute, our mission is to promote the constructive engagement of science, religion and the humanities in the common”and, alas today, un-common”pursuit of wisdom in order to address humanity’s most profound questions and challenges. As a movement we are an international network of scientists, theologians, philosophers, historians and other scholars in the humanities, educators, artists, and religious leaders, fostering interdisciplinary, intercultural, and inter-religious collaboration in pursuit of new insights and a better future. As an idea that drives this movement, metanexus-with-a-small-m aims at nothing less than the transformation of persons, institutions, education, and culture. Metanexus the idea is about unity in diversity, synthesis in analysis, an open space for inquiry and research and collaboration, an opening for the spirit itself. It is a kind of wisdom.
Whatever Happened to Wisdom?
This is the very fine line we walk”between the foolishness of giving up the quest for wisdom and wholeness and the idolatry of thinking our worldview or system or philosophical/theological position is complete and sufficient. The former lacks courage and the latter lacks humility.
What – Really – Is the “Science and Religion Dialogue” All About?
There are no longer any guiding threads to tie together the various disciplines or even the classical divisions between the natural, social, and human sciences. University curricula tend to be nothing but cafeteria menus of disparate courses, with no genuine attempt at a synthesis-intellectual or existential. Taking a disconnected set of courses that give us the BWOF is supposed to constitute an education. But it is ultimately a sham unless we can begin to say what it is we know now that we know so many disciplinarily distinct things. The failure to provide a means for doing this has {1} caused the deterioration of the humanities, {2} decreased the effectiveness of undergraduate (and secondary) science education, {3} created obstacles to sound critical thinking, and {4} driven colleges and universities to be more like job training programs, which {5} still cannot draw the relationship between working life and every other aspect of a fully human existence. The result is the fragmentation of the human person, the human soul.
A Dialogue on the Science and Religion Dialogue: William Schweiker and Eric Weislogel
William Schweiker and Eric Weislogel offer an interesting exchange over the nature and scope of the science and religion dialogue. Their exchange was posted in a recent edition of Sightings an email newsletter published under the sponsorship of the Martin Marty Center and featured on the University of Chicago Divinity School homepage http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings. Writing on the recent news of philosopher Anthony Flew’s revised stance on theism, Schweiker’s passing comments on the science and religion dialogue sparked a response from Weislogel. Rather than a heated debate of my side versus yours, the final result was an affirmation of trans-disciplinary approaches to knowledge and wisdom, the growth of religious understanding, and the possibilities of dialogue itself.
The Emergence of the Global University: Building Collaborative Networks for Integral Learning
“Science-and-Religion”-those of us engaged in this dialogue have tended to accept an “outsider’s view” of this exploration in which we are engaged. Instead of viewing the “science and religion dialogue” as some sort of idiosyncratic pseudo-discipline in its own right, I believe we should come to recognize that-far from being peripheral-the “science and religion dialogue” addresses itself to the very heart of humanistic learning. When we raise issues that intersect “science and religion,” we are working at the core of the curriculum of a liberal education. While that curriculum has provided astounding successes in its disciplinary division of labor, we are coming to realize that we have no good way to recognize the forest for the trees, so to speak. We have become so adept at the analytic (in fact, it is somewhat of an obsession, landing us in the so-called “postmodern condition”) that we have collectively forgotten the necessity and methods of synthesis and integral knowing. We have lost our love of wisdom. Were we to regain it, we would see the birth of new types of educational institutions, new transdisciplinary networks, new emphasis on collaboration and cross-cultural communication. The activities of the Local Societies Initiative, which consists of over 100 diverse societies of academics, intellectuals, and clergy in more than 25 countries on six continents, could provide a glimpse of the new curriculum of a humanistic education, the future of universities, and a renaissance in holistic learning.
Book Reviews
Review of A. Assiter, Kierkegaaard, Metaphysics, and Political Theory.
Review of J. Moltmann, Science and Wisdom. (.pdf)
Review of Dalai Lama, Ethics for a New Millennium.
Review of P. Reinhart, Bread Upon the Waters.
Review of J.F.T. Bugental, Psychotherapy Isn’t What You Think.
Review of K. Ameriks, The Fate of Autonomy.
Print Articles and Reviews
“The Religion/Science Interface: Contradictory or Complementary?” in The Millennial Lecture Series”: Religion & Science Interface 2002-2005. Ed. Eduard Alam, Doumit Salameh, & Boulos Sarru’. Notre Dame University Press, 2006. Pp. 17-42.
“Science and Religion Conference in Bratislava,” Research News and Opportunities. Volume 3, Number 9 (May 2003).
“Review of Polkinghorne and Welker, The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Volume 71, Number 1 (March 2003), pp.237-240.
“A ‘Mental Dinner’ in Delft.” The Spiral. Volume 4, Number 1 (February 2003).
“Pennsylvania and Kansas Groups Join Local Societies Dialogue,” Research News and Opportunities. Volume 3, Number 6 (February 2003).
“Review of F. Kirkpatrick, Ethics of Community.” Philosophy in Review. June 2002.
“We All Must Do Something to Help End the Killings,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 28, 2001.
“Getting Into RHYTHM With Supply Chain Planning: U. S. Steel’s Integration of Oracle and i2,” (with G. Rymer, R. Vadakattu, R. Sturim) The Proceedings of the Oracle Applications Users Group (1998).
“Schlegel’s Irony: Hoverings,” Idealistic Studies. Volume 22, Number 3 (September, 1992).
“The Irony of Richard Rorty and the Question of Political Judgment,” Philosophy Today. Volume 34, Number 4 (Winter 1990).