Stages of Thought: The Co-Evolution of Religious Thought and Science

الغلاف الأمامي
Oxford University Press, 25‏/05‏/2000 - 344 من الصفحات
In Stages of Thought, Michael Barnes examines a pattern of cognitive development that has evolved over thousands of years--a pattern manifest in both science and religion. He describes how the major world cultures built upon our natural human language skills to add literacy, logic, and, now, a highly critical self-awareness. In tracing the histories of both scientific and religious thought, Barnes shows why we think the way that we do today. Although religious and scientific modes of thought are often portrayed as contradictory-one is highly rational while the other appeals to tradition and faith-Barnes argues that they evolved together and are actually complementary. Using the developmental thought of Piaget, he argues that cultures develop like individuals in that both learn easier cognitive skills first and master the harder ones later. This is especially true, says Barnes, because the harder ones often require first the creation of cognitive technology like writing or formal logic as well as the creation of social institutions that teach and sustain those skills. Barnes goes on to delineate the successive stages of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thought in the West, from the preliterate cultures of antiquity up to the present time. Along the way, he covers topics such as the impact of literacy on human modes of thought; the development of formalized logic and philosophical reflections; the emergence of an explicitly rational science; the birth of formal theologies; and, more recently, the growth of modern empirical science. This groundbreaking book offers a thorough and persuasive argument in favor of the development of modes of thought across cultures. It will serve as an invaluable resource for historians of religion, philosophers and historians of science, and anyone interested in the relationship between religion and science.

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المحتوى

Introduction
3
1 Culture and Cognition
15
2 Addressing the Critics
34
3 Cognitive Styles in Primitive Cultures
53
4 Archaic Thought Preliterate and Literate
78
5 The Axial Age and the Classical Style of Thought
93
6 Philosophy Religion and Science in Western Antiquity
112
7 The Decline and Recovery of Classical Rationality in the West
132
8 Early Modern Models of Reality in Science and Religion
152
9 The Method of Modern Empirical Science
175
10 Religious Responses to Modern Science
200
Notes
233
Bibliography
298
Index
323
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مقاطع مشهورة

الصفحة 104 - THE TAO that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named is the mother of all things.
الصفحة 98 - THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where ? and what gave shelter ? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water? Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider. That one thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
الصفحة 104 - However, mode d = [/ : 10] d, e = union (int, e) is not a mode-declaration.) (Tao produced the one. The one produced the two. The two produced the three. And the three produced the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry the yin and embrace the yang, and through the blending of the material force they achieve harmony.
الصفحة 35 - There is an undoubted tendency in the advance of civilization to eliminate traditional elements, and to gain a clearer and clearer insight into the hypothetical basis of our reasoning. It is therefore not surprising that, with the advance of civilization, reasoning becomes more and more logical...
الصفحة 292 - When the feeling of pleasure or pain in the soul is most intense, all of us naturally suppose that the object of this intense feeling is then plainest and truest : but this is not the case.
الصفحة 63 - ... differentiated or so radically opposed to one another. The traditional opposition of good and bad is nothing beside this; for the good and the bad are only two opposed species of the same class, namely morals, just as sickness and health are two different aspects of the same order of facts, life, while the sacred and the profane have always and everywhere been conceived by the human mind as two distinct classes, as two worlds between which there is nothing in common.
الصفحة 195 - First, a theory should be accurate: within its domain, that is, consequences deducible from a theory should be in demonstrated agreement with the results of existing experiments and observations.
الصفحة 99 - Higher than the senses are the objects of sense. Higher than the objects of sense is the mind (manas); And higher than the mind is the intellect (buddhi). Higher than the intellect is the Great Self (Atman).
الصفحة 195 - Third, it should have broad scope: in particular, a theory's consequences should extend far beyond the particular observations, laws, or subtheories it was initially designed to explain. Fourth, and closely related, it should be simple, bringing order to phenomena that in its absence would be individually isolated and, as a set, confused.
الصفحة 64 - Australia have no idea of a supreme divinity, creator, and judge — no object of worship, no idol, temple, or sacrifice, but that, 'in short, they have nothing whatever of the character of religion, or of religious observance, to distinguish them from the beasts that perish.

نبذة عن المؤلف (2000)

Michael H. Barnes is Professor of Religious Studies and Alumni Chair in Humanities, The University of Dayton.

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