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Art12

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 10 months ago

The Phenomenon of Man

Tailhard de Chardin
 

Tailhard was a Jesuit priest as well as a world renowned man of science. He wa present at the discovery of Peking man and became an acknowledged expert on the evolution of mankind. His particular focus was on the evolution of consciousness. He was interested not only in the origins of consciouaness, but its ultimate destiny: Where is our evolution taking us?

This question positioned him as a man caught right in the middle of the two major conflicting world views

His scientific arguments on the orgins of man from our primate beginnings, put him odds with the Vatigan who insisted that his scientific papas remain unpublished. His religious belief on the essential Divine nature of consciousness put him at odds with the lodge of science. His papers were ony published after his death. Tailhard died precisely in the day he predicted, 10th April 1955, Good Friday.

The dichotomy of de Chardin's thought was then, and still is today, shared by thousands of other luminaries, including Albert Einstein who died eight days after Tailhard.

It is also the positon shared by some 200 million New Agers who also struggle to find a meeting ground between science and God.

Sir Julian Huxley had some penetrating remarks to say about Tailhard's awkward position on the world stage

"In the Phenomenon of Man, de-Chardin has effected a three-fold synthesis - of the material and phsyical world with the world of mind and spirit; of the past with the future ; and of variety with unity, the many with the one. ...he is able to envisage the whole of knowable reality not as a static mechanism but as a process." Sir Julian Huxley

Below are a few of Tailhards remarks. I thought it might be interesting to hear what members might contribute to this never-ending argument.

Extracts from the Phenomenon of Man, Tailhard De Chardin

Admittedly an animal knows, but it cannot know it knows itself."

"Reflection is, as the word indicates, the power acquired by a consciousness to turn in upon itself, to take possession of itself as an object endowed wih it own partuicular consistence and value: "

In the evolution of this planet "we saw geogenesis promoted to biogenesis which has turned out in the end to be nothing but psychogenesis."

"With homonisation ...we have th beginning if a new age. The earth gets a new skin. Better still it finds it soul."

 

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