Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenology of the Noosphere

Hub Zwart

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-84570-4_7

Abstract

AbstractAlthough Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was thoroughly trained in philosophy and theology, he was first and foremost a paleoanthropologist, directly involved in the discovery of Homo erectus pekinensis (“Sinanthropus”) in China in the 1920s and 1930s. He came from a Catholic aristocratic background, was ordained a priest in 1911, survived World War I (as a stretcher-bearer, distinguished with the Legion of Honour), joined the Jesuit Order, conducted paleoanthropological field work during the interbellum, and became entangled in a conflict with his Jesuit superiors (over pantheism and the concept of original sin) until his death in New York (in exile more or less). When his writings were published (shortly after his death, as his superiors forbade publication during his lifetime), he quickly became an intellectual celebrity. Currently, he is credited with having anticipated Gaia theory (King, 2006), the global village concept (McLuhan, 1962), the Internet (Barlow, 1992; Cobb, 1998), the WWW (Garreau, 2005, p. 256; Greenfield, 2014, p. 9), transhumanism (Delio, 2014; Steinhart, 2008), the “global brain” (Stock, 1993), and the Anthropocene (e.g. Crutzen, 2002; Steffen et al., 2011).

Highlights

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was thoroughly trained in philosophy and theology, he was first and foremost a paleoanthropologist, directly involved in the discovery of Homo erectus pekinensis (“Sinanthropus”) in China in the 1920s and 1930s. He came from a Catholic aristocratic background, was ordained a priest in 1911, survived World War I, joined the Jesuit Order, conducted paleoanthropological field work during the interbellum, and became entangled in a conflict with his Jesuit superiors until his death in New York
In a remarkably malevolent and hostile review of the English translation of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Human Phenomenon, Peter Medawar (1961), once a big name allegedly, stated the following: “The Phenomenon of Man stands square in the tradition of Naturphilosophie, a philosophical indoor pastime of German origin which does not seem even by accident to have contributed anything of permanent value to the storehouse of human thought”
Plastic litter will carry a logo, a set of letters, an inscription, representing the “logos” of technoscience

Summary

Introduction

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was thoroughly trained in philosophy and theology, he was first and foremost a paleoanthropologist, directly involved in the discovery of Homo erectus pekinensis (“Sinanthropus”) in China in the 1920s and 1930s He came from a Catholic aristocratic background, was ordained a priest in 1911, survived World War I (as a stretcher-bearer, distinguished with the Legion of Honour), joined the Jesuit Order, conducted paleoanthropological field work during the interbellum, and became entangled in a conflict with his Jesuit superiors (over pantheism and the concept of original sin) until his death in New York (in exile more or less).. For Teilhard, scientific research was a religious activity: a priestly practice, a spiritual exercise, an Opus Dei (Udías, 2009) Books such as The Human Phenomenon and The Divine Milieu foster convergence between evolutionary research and religious faith. There is something unique about humans, because the noosphere (the evolving layer of language and communication, science and technology) emerges and proliferates via us

What Is Phenomenology?

Teilhard as a Dialectical Thinker

The Ascent of the Spirit and the Noosphere