Metaphysics & Religion After Modernity (a panel)

Bios

William Dowling
William Dowling received a bachelors in science from the University of Colorado at Boulder for applied math with a concentration in biology. He is currently finishing up his second year in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Masters Program. He will be graduating from CIIS in the Spring of 2019 and is planning on applying to PhD programs with the goal of continuing his studies in the areas of philosophy and science. Among the thinkers who have most influenced him along the way are Rupert Sheldrake, Teilhard de Chardin, and Henri Bergson.

Emily Wright
Emily Wright is a PhD candidate in the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program at CIIS. She received MSc’s in Neuroscience from University College London and Ecole Normale Superior in Paris. Her primary research focus centers on neurophenomenology.

Ashton Kohl Arnoldy
Ashton Kohl Arnoldy is completing an MA in PCC, and his research interests include cosmopoetics.

Dr. Jake Sherman
Jacob Sherman is assistant professor and core faculty in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies and the co-director of the Chaudhuri Center for Contemplative Practice, Interreligious Dialogue, and Social Justice at CIIS. He received his PhD in philosophical theology from the University of Cambridge, and holds masters’ degrees in interdisciplinary studies and philosophy and religion from Regent College and CIIS, respectively. Before joining CIIS as a faculty member, Jacob was previously visiting lecturer in philosophy of religion at King’s College London.

Metaphysics and Religion after Modernity

Is metaphysics something worth thinking about today in the twenty-first century or is it a relic of an age well left behind? For over two hundred years now, philosophers from Hume and Kant to Comte and Carnap to Nietzsche and Heidegger have repeatedly claimed that the age of metaphysics, like the age of religion to which it is closely tied, is over. We have, they insist, freed ourselves from superstition; we have become a post-metaphysical people. But are we really beyond metaphysics? What would that mean? And should we even want to be? The great questions about the nature of being, what it means to be, what being longs for, hopes for, desires, the good, the true, the beautiful, even God – the great questions of metaphysics may not be so easily dismissed. Schopenhauer claims that the human is a metaphysical animal, and in recent decades an increasing number of cutting edge philosophers from across the philosophical spectrum have sought both to revive and to revise metaphysics not only as a vital strand of philosophical inquiry, but as essential to the task of making sense of our current crises. This panel seeks to engage this conversation by raising questions about the viability of metaphysics today, the role of metaphysics vis-à-vis science, the place of contemplative practices in renewed metaphysical inquiry, and other such matters. Throughout it, we aim to keep open the question: is there a place for the renewal of metaphysics in our own day and time

[mandys]

@37:00... This is a prime example of how capitalism appropriates other cultures...it twists the phenomenon into its exact opposite, but also while hollowing it out into a meaningless, flattened shell...and then passing it off as "meditation" . //Thanks for the talk...I like it a lot. // Just saying... The capitalist version of meditation has [evil genius alert] turned into an actual selfish, or self-centered practice, whereas Buddhist meditation, whether done by westerners or whomever....is about becoming or actually dwelling in that space which connects all beings- which is known as Dharma Kaya, or the Buddha body of Bliss....the reason that it is compassion, is because the practitioner is transcening the self and becoming the interspaces, in a way, manifesting them. So, what a joke. Capitalism gets the last laugh...I guess. Well at least it's has prevented so many people from knowing what is even out there....