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425The Emperor's New Science, or Jerry Coyne on the Incompatibility of Science and Religion (review)ESSSAT News and Reviews 26 (1): 19-26. 2016.Review Article on Jerry A. Coyne, Faith versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.
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1481The Problem of Trans-Humanism in the Light of Philosophy and TheologyIn J. B. Stump A. G. Padgett (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, Blackwell. pp. 393-405. 2012.Transhumanism is a means of advocating a re-engineering of conditions that surround human existence at both ends. The problem set before us in this chapter is to inquire into what determined its appearance, in particular in the humanism it seeks to overcome. We look at the spirit of overcoming itself, and the impatience with the Self, in order to try to understand why it seeks a saving power in technology. We then consider how the evolutionary account of the production of organisms does not set …Read more
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810Physics in Catholicism in Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions, Vol 3. Anne Runehov and Lluis Oviedo (Eds.) (pp. 1718-1729)In Anne L. C. Runehov & Luis Oviedo (eds.), Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions, Vol 3., Springer. pp. 1718-1729. 2013.Outline: The reality of Catholicism; The question of the development of science; Historical outlook at some transitional moments; When dogma meets science; Contemporary physics and the worldview of Catholicism; Awaiting a 'Grand Narrative' and the final vision of harmony.
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462Contenu, enjeux et diversité des acceptions de l’Intelligent Design en contexte étatsunienConnaître. Cahiers de l'Association Foi Et Culture Scientifique 26 9-43. 2007.This paper aims at introducing a French audience to the Intelligent Design debate. It starts by reviewing recent attacks on any possibility of a rational account of theism in light of the contemporary theory of evolution. A section is devoted to outlining the genesis of the "wedge" strategy, to distinguish it from young earth creationism, and to highlight the questioning of evolution as our meta-narrative bearing on overall conceptions of the scientific endeavor. The arguments propounded by Behe…Read more
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436“What we have learnt from systems theory about the things that Nature’s understanding achieves”In Dirk Evers, Antje Jackelén & Taede Smedes (eds.), How do we Know? Understanding in Science and Theology, Forum Scientiarum. 2010.The problem of knowledge has been centred around the study of the content of our consciousness, seeing the world through internal representation, without any satisfactory account of the operations of nature that would be a pre-condition for our own performances in terms of concept efficiency in organizing action externally. If we want to better understand where and how meaning fits in nature, we have to find the proper way to decipher its organization, and account for the fact that we have found…Read more
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824Nietzsche between the Eternal Return to Humanity and the Voice of the ManyAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2): 383-411. 2010.Thus Spoke Zarathustra expresses a revolt against the quest for “afterworlds.” Nietzsche is seen transferring rationality to the body, welcoming the many in akingdom of the un-unified multiple, with a burst of enthusiasm at the figure of recurrence. At first, he values an acceptation of suffering through reconciliation with time, and puts the onus on the divine to refute the dismembering of the oneness of meaning and unity of the soul’s quest for joy in eternity. Then confrontingChristianity, he…Read more
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372Remarques sur la théologie naturelle anglo-saxonne aujourd’huiConnaître. Cahiers de l'Association Foi Et Culture Scientifique 22 83-108. 2005.This paper first outlines the main ideas of British natural theology, and shows the perennial value some of them have kept. It then outlines ways of searching for connections between God and nature, seeking traces of intelligence, first in the context of the setting of the modern ontology of the laws of nature, and then in the context of the design argument. It contrasts the positions of Hume and Paley. A presentation of recent "intelligent design" proposals is then offered, from the perspective…Read more
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1559An Improbable God Between Simplicity and Complexity: Thinking about Dawkins’s ChallengeInternational Philosophical Quarterly 53 (4): 409-433. 2013.Richard Dawkins has popularized an argument that he thinks sound for showing that there is almost certainly no God. It rests on the assumptions (1) that complex and statistically improbable things are more difficult to explain than those that are not and (2) that an explanatory mechanism must show how this complexity can be built up from simpler means. But what justifies claims about the designer’s own complexity? One comes to a different understanding of order and of simplicity when one conside…Read more
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325Malebranche et Berkeley: Les créatures et les raisons éternellesBulletin de la Société de Philosophie du Québec 29 (2): 15-16. 2003.
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737"La métaphysique de Raymond Ruyer dans son rapport à la théologie naturelle" [The Metaphysics of Raymond Ruyer in Relation to Natural Theology]In Bertrand Souchard & Fabien Revol (eds.), Controverses sur la création : Science, philosophie, théologie, Vrin/institut Interdisciplinaire D'études Épistémologiques. pp. 11-53. 2016.
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174Ce que le théisme demande à la scienceLaval Théologique et Philosophique 58 (3): 457-487. 2002.Close attention to levels of organization leads one to doubt the random character of the regulations of the cosmos as a whole. Scientific knowledge seems able, after all, to bring into focus the enigma of the individual histories that have shaped the world. Religious consciousness of a personal destiny should be analogically linked to the destiny of the universe in which it is rooted.
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35L'exigence de l'explication en biologie au regard d'une philosophie de la morphogenèseEikasia. Revista de Filosofía 35 123-180. 2010.In a first part I present the results of the philosophy of scientific explanation with an attempt to apply them to the case of the theory of evolution. Then I observe that the requirements of modelization of phenomena with the help of inductive logic do not capture efficiently the pertinent factors and fail just as much to exclude those which end up being neutral as explanatory premises. I then query in the direction of confirmation theory, and show that probabilistic reasoning does not possess …Read more
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772Ethnopsychiatrie et syntonie. Contexte philosophique et applications cliniques (review)Process Studies 45 (1): 99-103. 2016.
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489"Le dernier état d'un finalisme contemporain – À propos d'un inédit majeur de Raymond Ruyer" [The final status of a contemporary finalism–Concerning a major unpublished draft of Raymond Ruyer]Laval Théologique et Philosophique 70 (2): 367-378. 2014.This is a critical notice/review essay on *L'embryogenèse du monde et le Dieu silencieux*, a manuscript completed by Raymond Ruyer in the early 1980s. It came out as a monograph in November 2013, with the Éditions Klincksieck in Paris. It offers a presentation in an organized fashion of many aspects of his thought. Ruyer considered that a book about God could only be churned into a series of chapters on the unachievable character of our knowledge in different domains of human inquiry. The nature…Read more
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59Remarques sur le projet essentialiste de Brian Ellis en philosophie de la natureEikasia. Revista de Filosofía 43 61-94. 2012.
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25Les limites du vivant sont-elles riches d’une leçon? Contribution à l’étude du déterminisme morphiqueEikasia. Revista de Filosofía 27 155-186. 2009.Freedom is first apprehended as the pursuit of an activity which implies the choice to defend a thesis among other possible ones. This translation of the problem of freedom in an articulate language presupposes a complex nervous system and sensory apparatuses which we take for granted. In this study, I try to explore the undergrounds of the problem of freedom along with the suggestion that the notion of coding could enable one to bridge nature and the mind. When organisms invent, are they doing …Read more
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477New Arguments for 'Intelligent Design'? Review Article on William A. Dembski, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (review)ESSSAT News and Reviews 25 (1): 17-24. 2015.Critical notice assessing the use of information theory in the attempt to build a design inference, and to re-establish some aspects of the program of natural theology, as carried out in this third major monograph devoted to the subject of intelligent design theory by mathematician and philosopher William A. Dembski, after The Design Inference (1998) and No Free Lunch (2002).
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1552Raymond Ruyer, la biologie et la théologie naturelle [Raymond Ruyer, biology, and natural theology]In Ronny Desmet & Michel Weber (eds.), Chromatikon VIII: Annales de la philosophie en procès — Yearbook of Philosophy in Process, Éditions Chromatika. pp. 157-176. 2012.This is the outline: Introduction : le praticien d’une science-philosophie; Épiphénoménisme retourné et subjectivité délocalisée; Dieu est-il jamais inféré par la science ?; La question du panthéisme; Le pilotage axiologique et la parabole mécaniste; L'unité domaniale comme ce qui reste en dehors de la science.
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555"Claude Tresmontant, la philosophie chrétienne et les présupposés d'une métaphysique de la Charité" [Claude Tresmontant, Christian Philosophy, and the Assumptions Behind a Metaphysics of Charity]In Bertrand Souchard Fabien Revol (ed.), Réel voilé et cosmos théophanique. Le regard de l'homme sur la nature et la question de Dieu, Vrin/institut Interdisciplinaire D'études Épistémologiques. pp. 453-501. 2016.
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412Cartesianism, the Embodied Mind, and the Future of Cognitive ResearchIn Dirk Evers, Michael Fuller, Anne Runehov & Knut-Willy Sæther (eds.), Do Emotions Shape the World? Biennial Yearbook of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology 2015-2016. "Studies in Science and Theology" Vol. 15, Martin-luther-universität. pp. 225-244. 2015.In his oft-cited book Descartes' Error, Antonio Damasio claims that Descartes is responsible for having stifled the development of modern neurobiological science, in particular as regards the objective study of the physical and physiological bases for emotive and socially-conditioned cognition. Most of Damasio’s book would stand without reference to Descartes, so it is intriguing to ask why he launched this attack. What seems to fuel such claims is a desire for a more holistic understanding of t…Read more
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505"Diversité et historique des mouvements écologiques en Amérique du Nord" [Diversity and origins of the ecological movements in North America]Connaître: Cahiers de l'Association Foi Et Culture Scientifique 40 76-89. 2014.The development of ecological thinking in North America has been conditioned by the imperative aiming at a valuation of the biotic community. Since the end of WWII, the US population was warned against the dangerous and violent alterations of nature. Many then found in theology an unforeseen ally. I review the roots of the tension which led to debates involving radical ecologism or its denial, and I aim at analyzing it philosophically
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237La contribution de Claude Tresmontant à la compréhension des signes de crédibilité de la RévélationÉglise Et Théologie 30 (3): 327-364. 1999.This study is devoted to the problem of the place and significance of the scientific quest and worldview, and to their articulation with metaphysics as they serve to bring the mind to the consideration of the problem and mystery of the existence of God in the thought of the contemporary French philosopher and theologian Claude Tresmontant (1925-97).
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386Le paradoxe du progrès : Cournot, Stent et RuyerIn Michel Weber Vincent Berne (ed.), Chromatikon X : Annales de la Philosophie En Procès – Yearbook of Philosophy in Process, . pp. 71-90. 2014.This text reconsiders the philosophizing into the future of mankind and futurology done by molecular biologist Gunther Stent in *The Coming of the Golden Age* in the light of Raymond Ruyer's critical notice published in the aftermath of the publication of Stent's book in French translation. For Ruyer, it is an occasion to revisit his own take on what he called in his last work a "theology of the opposition between the organic and the rational," and to restate in a new light his conclusions conce…Read more
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859Temporalité de la genèse chez Maurice Blondel et Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Esquisse d’un rapprochementScience Et Esprit 54 (1): 75-95. 2002.Teilhard has never given up on permanence behind change, whereas Blondel, although interested by permanence, presents a very keen consciousness of irreversibility. Blondel attempts to construct an ontology that integrates this fact of change or becoming. Would this have satisfied Teilhard? Blondel develops a "logic of moral life" insisting on the initial option right to the end of our destiny. Teilhard develops a consciousness of time with a direct hold on a world apprehended first by the senses…Read more
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33À propos d’un texte de Miguel Espinoza sur le déterminisme et la libertéEikasia. Revista de Filosofía 27 281-289. 2009.This critical notice was occasioned by reading M. Espinoza, "Freedom in a Causally Determined World," Actas de las XIII Jornadas sobre Filosofía y Metodología Actual de la Ciencia, Jornadas sobre Libertad y Determinismo: Ciencias Sociales y Ciencias de la Naturaleza, Universidad de A Coruña, March 2008.
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353Penser la science et la foi par la passion de la recherche. À propos de 'Chercheurs en science, chercheurs de sens'Laval Théologique et Philosophique 67 (1): 149-154. 2011.This critical notice was occasioned by the reading of a recent monograph, published at the end of 2009, which features a dialogue and a mutual critical assessment of the work of a microbiologist, also a priest from the Mission de France, and an astrophysicist who was agnostic. The book inquires into the motivations of scientific research, looks at the quest for a Creator behind the said work when done by a believer, and tries to retrieve the spiritual presuppositions that would be present at the…Read more
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546A look at the inference engine underlying ‘evolutionary epistemology’ accounts of the production of heuristicsIn Dirk Evers, Antje Jackelén & Michael Fuller (eds.), Is Religion Natural? ESSSAT Yearbook 2011-2012, Forthcoming. 2012.This paper evaluates the claim that it is possible to use nature’s variation in conjunction with retention and selection on the one hand, and the absence of ultimate groundedness of hypotheses generated by the human mind as it knows on the other hand, to discard the ascription of ultimate certainty to the rationality of human conjectures in the cognitive realm. This leads to an evaluation of the further assumption that successful hypotheses with specific applications, in other words heuristics, …Read more
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339Les nouvelles biotechnologies en questions. Préface de Jean Audouze. Paris, Éditions Salvator , 2013, 127 p. (review)Laval Théologique et Philosophique 70 (1): 205-208. 2014.Philippe Gagnon
Philippe Gagnon
Université Catholique de Lille
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Université Catholique de LilleChaire Sciences, Technosciences Et Foi À L'heure de L'écologie Intégrale
Lille, Hauts-de-France, France
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |