Science, Humanism, And Religion: The Quest For Orientation (studies In Humanism And Atheism)

In the human quest for orientation vis-à-vis personal life and comprehensive reality the worldviews of religionists and humanists offer different answers, and science also plays a crucial role. Yet it is the ordinary, embodied experience of meaningful engagement with reality in which all these cultural activities are rooted. Human beings have to relate themselves to the entirety of their lives to achieve orientation. This relation involves a non-methodical, meaningful experience that exhibits the crucial features for understanding worldviews: it comprises cognition, volition, and emotion, is embodied, action-oriented, and expressive. From this starting-point, religious and secular worldviews articulate what is experienced as ultimately meaningful. Yet the plurality and one-sidedness of these life stances necessitates critical engagement for which philosophy provides indispensable means. In the end, some worldviews can be ruled out, but we are still left with a plurality of genuine options for orientation. Preface and Acknowledgments 6 Contents 8 Chapter 1: Introduction: Orientation as a Life-Function 10 Science and Religion: Changing the Perspective 13 Humans and Other Organisms: From the Environment to the World 16 Do We Need an Articulated Relation to Comprehensive Reality? 22 Immanuel Kant and the Idea of Orientation 24 The Incompleteness of Objective Reality and the Primacy of Meaning 27 Linguistic Animals: Shared Consciousness and the Articulation of Felt Meaning 31 The Conceptual Context: Naturalism and Humanism 36 References 38 Chapter 2: Science versus Scientism: Is There Such a Thing as the Scientific Worldview? 41 Science as a Life-Function 41 The Relative Autonomy of Science 52 Unity and Pluralism: The Cognitive Scope of Science 61 Science as a Religion: What Is Bad About Scientism 76 References 86 Chapter 3: Varieties of Naturalism and Humanism 89 Human Values and Naturalism 93 The Hidden Agenda of Modernity: Stephen Toulmin 99 Middle-Ground Humanism 105 References 113 Chapter 4: Rediscovering the Importance of Ordinary Experience 115 Holism 121 Qualitative Character 123 Embodiment and Transcendence 126 Action-Orientation 129 Articulation and Meaning 133 References 140 Chapter 5: The Unavoidability of Worldviews 141 Meaning in Life and the Emergence of Worldviews 141 “Language Is Not (Only) a Tool”: Symbolic Capacities as Constitutive for Worldviews 149 The Quest for Sacredness 156 Pluralism and Contingency 164 References 174 Chapter 6: Worldviews and the Limits of Philosophy 176 Reconsidering the Role of Philosophy 176 Doing Philosophy Pragmatically 183 Philosophy as Internal Criticism 191 The Limits of Philosophy 203 References 207 Chapter 7: Coda: Blocked Roads and Genuine Options 209 Beyond Scientism and Religious Fundamentalism 209 The Secular State, Worldview Pluralism, and the Problem of Shared Values 216 The Optional Character of Worldviews: Genuine Options 222 References 229 Index 230 Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Introduction: Orientation as a Life-Function (Matthias Jung)....Pages 1-31 Science versus Scientism: Is There Such a Thing as the Scientific Worldview? (Matthias Jung)....Pages 33-80 Varieties of Naturalism and Humanism (Matthias Jung)....Pages 81-106 Rediscovering the Importance of Ordinary Experience (Matthias Jung)....Pages 107-132 The Unavoidability of Worldviews (Matthias Jung)....Pages 133-167 Worldviews and the Limits of Philosophy (Matthias Jung)....Pages 169-201 Coda: Blocked Roads and Genuine Options (Matthias Jung)....Pages 203-223 Back Matter ....Pages 225-230