: The change of territory from religion to spirituality in our secular societies has given rise to the so-called naturalized spirituality within the naturalist tradition. We critically discuss O.W. Flanagan and S. Harris’ proposals and the contemporary naturalist ethos in which they appear.

El presente trabajo se propone analizar la posición de Daniel Dennett con respecto a la realidad y naturaleza del yo. El autor considera que la concepción del yo humano propia del sentido común, en tanto que un elemento único, simple, idéntico y continuo, es fundamentalmente una ficción. A partir de este diagnóstico, Dennett se propone ofrecer una explicación de este fenómeno ilusorio desde una doble perspectiva: la heterofenomenología y la memética. La primera y segunda parte de este trabajo estarán destinadas (...) a desarrollar respectivamente estos dos enfoques. En la tercera parte serán analizadas las afirmaciones hechas por el autor dentro de los mencionados marcos teóricos, con el objetivo de mostrar que ambos desarrollos no se complementan entre sí, sino que, por el contrario, presentan ciertas contradicciones a la hora de reconstruir la postura dennettiana global con respecto al yo humano. (shrink)

This article addresses complexity by selecting some of its key aspects that share a common feature: the power to change. They seem to change not only the way the world is approached by scientists, but also the way this approach, the resulting perspectives and their multiple relationships, are interpreted. These main aspects are: the challenge of measurability, with an unexpected result that escapes the gravitational field of the measurability problem; the meaning of reproducibility and the redrawn boundaries of scientific inquiry, (...) with implications for the social sciences; the altered expectations concerning prediction, which seem to break with a glorious tradition of unquestioned technological success; and the discovery of all-embracing patterns of events that unavoidably include large events, possibly perceived as ‘crises’, which one may hope to understand and confront, rather than rule out. The resulting geography, with its new landmarks, new relationships among its elements and new means of orientation, is expected to reach the public sooner or later, even if the effect – according to complexity theory itself – cannot be foreseen in detail. All these fibres of change are considered in the context of a fresh meaning of time and of a topology dominated by network concepts. (shrink)

This essay compares Robert John Russell's work in his recent book Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: The Creative Mutual Interaction of Theology and Science (2008) to that of the authors known collectively as "the new atheists." I treat the latter as recent contributors to the modern tradition of scientific naturalism. This tradition makes claims to legitimacy on the basis of its close relations to the natural sciences. The purpose of this essay is to show up the poverty of the naturalist (...) tradition's scientific credentials by contrasting it with Russell's careful account of positive relations between science and Christian theology. (shrink)

I claim that explanations of human behaviour by Edward O. Wilsonand Charles Lumsden are constituted by a religiously functioningmetaphysics: emergent materialism. The constitutive effects areidentified using six criteria, beginning with a metaphorical re-description of dissimilarities between levels of organization interms of the lower level, and consist of conceptual andexplanatory reductions (CER). Wilson and Lumsden practice CER,even though CER is not required by emergent materialism. Theypreconceive this practice by a re-description which conflates thelevels of organization and explain failure of CER in (...) terms oftechnical, not ontological or epistemological reasons. Iinterpret these three practices as a reaction of Wilson againsthis early Christian religious beliefs. Statements by Wilsonindicate this reaction ultimately constitutes his explanations ofsocial, moral and religious behaviour.Tested knowledge about matter at the lower level functions as ametaphysical belief when applied to the higher level becausethere it is untested. I offer twelve criteria for the diagnosisof religious functions of this metaphysical materialism, five ofwhich are satisfied. I show that the constitutive effects of thismaterialism in sociobiology are due to its religious functions,are beneficial for science and do not destroy its public nature. (shrink)