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1536An 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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1536Raymond 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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1471The 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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843Temporalité 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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808Nietzsche 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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797Physics 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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765Ethnopsychiatrie et syntonie. Contexte philosophique et applications cliniques (review)Process Studies 45 (1): 99-103. 2016.
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720"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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706Ruyer, la pensée de l’espace et la métaphore fondatrice de la connaissanceLaval Théologique et Philosophique 72 (3): 465-490. 2016.I present first the challenge for epistemology when it faces the dilemma between rationalism and empiricism, followed by a presentation of the ideas introduced by Ruyer in order to ask if they can be articulated to the "third way" in epistemology. I explore the consequences of Ruyer's inversion of our understanding of space which can be looked upon as psychic. I consider Ruyer's refusal to locate in pure immanence the scheme of eupraxic resolution of successful aggregates–as living forms–in our …Read more
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670L’irréductibilité de la connaissance et l’intentionnalité en contexte de découverte abductiveLaval Théologique et Philosophique 67 (2): 227-258. 2011.Knowledge is still an enigma, with its ability to inductively bring out a pattern without restricting itself to an empirical count of situations experienced. Instead of seeing the concept as a weakened object representing an external reality, it is suggested to view knowledge as the bridging of a distance with an ability for the knower to stay connected with outward reality. Attempts at defining an external and quantitative criterion of truth are questioned, as many human performances are not li…Read more
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660A Contingency Interpretation of Information Theory as a Bridge between God’s Immanence and TranscendenceIn Michael Fuller, Dirk Evers, Anne L. C. Runehov, Knut-Willy Sæther & Bernard Michollet (eds.), Issues in Science and Theology: Nature – and Beyond, Springer. pp. 169-185. 2020.This paper investigates the degree to which information theory, and the derived uses that make it work as a metaphor of our age, can be helpful in thinking about God’s immanence and transcendance. We ask when it is possible to say that a consciousness has to be behind the information we encounter. If God is to be thought about as a communicator of information, we need to ask whether a communication system has to pre-exist to the divine and impose itself to God. If we want God to be Creator, and …Read more
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645Ruyer and Simondon on Technological Inventiveness and Form Outlasting its MediumDeleuze and Guatarri Studies 11 (4): 538-554. 2017.A summary is provided of Ruyer's important contribution, also a reversal from some conclusions held in his secondary doctoral dissertation, about the limits inherent in technological progress, and an attempt is made to show the coherence of this position to Ruyer's metaphysics. Simondon's response is also presented, and subsequently analyzed especially as it culminates in a concept of concretizations. As Simondon indicated, and with a displacement in Ruyer's limitating framework on unconditional…Read more
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588This is the outline: Introduction — La question de la cybernétique et de l'information — Une « pensée du milieu » — Cybernétique et homologie — Une théorie de l'apprentissage — L'information vue de l'autre côté — Champ et domaine unitaire — La thèse des « autres-je » — Le passage par l'axiologie — La rétroaction vraie — L'ontologie de Ruyer — Le bruissement de l'être même
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546"Utilité de la théologie naturelle pour la connaissance de Dieu aujourd’hui" [Usefulness of Natural Theology for God's Knowledge Today]Connaître : Cahiers de l'Association Foi Et Culture Scientifique (48): 83-92. 2017.In this public debate with Philippe Deterre (research director in immunology at the CNRS) – held at l'Enclos Rey in Paris' 15th district during the biennial Conference of the Réseau Blaise Pascal in March 2017 –, I defended the usefulness of natural theology. I first clarify theology's nature and understanding, then I speak about a tradition that upheld the public and exterior knowledge of God, and make an effort to show the presence of a theme reminiscent of natural theology behind attempts at …Read more
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545"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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539A 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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495"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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479"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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469New 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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453Contenu, 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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427“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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415The 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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399Cartesianism, 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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373Le 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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361Remarques 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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346Penser 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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326Les 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
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325"Milton Munitz et le concept-limite d'« illimitation » en cosmologie (1ère partie)" [Milton Munitz on unboundedness in cosmology - Ist Part]Connaître : Cahiers de l'Association Foi Et Culture Scientifique (46): 104-117. 2017.This is the outline: 1. Introduction 2. La compréhension théorique – 2.1 Le dynamisme conceptuel et l'a priori 2.2 L'horizon conceptuel – 3. Compréhension et singularité 4. La production de signifiance 5. La présence du mystère 6. Le problème de la substantialité : l'un et le multiple – 6.1 La notion d'un ordre implicite
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 |