Religious Studies: Anthropology, Metaphysics and Science [SSPSB102]

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Religious Studies: Anthropology, Metaphysics and Science

Learning to work in a team

Knowing how to use coaching to optimise your project

Making decisions that engage people

Discover metaphysical systems from a different point of view and the role they play in the lives of individuals and societies all over the world.

Becoming aware of metaphysical systems as a heritage of humanity and a reservoir of concepts and stories to foster mental creativity in the arts and sciences.

Objectives

Objectives

According to the philosopher Paul Ricœur, the human being is a mediator. In this sense, the course " Issues in the Sciences of Religion " is an invitation to discover the human being as an individual and as a species, and the way in which he or she uses metaphysical systems, such as theories of global reality, as a means of mediation in order to actualise himself or herself. According to the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, self-fulfilment or self-actualisation appears to be an imperative necessity through the interposition of mediating elements such as language, art, ritual and religion. This teaching is an opportunity to show how these symbolic activities give efficiency to the human world, from access to inner peace to action in the city aimed at creating a people. Finally, theories of global reality are not only knowledge about human beings; they are also a reservoir of counter-intuitive concepts, alternative logics and exemplary narratives that can be used to stimulate intellectual creativity, especially in the arts and sciences.

Content

Teaching content

The teaching is approached thematically in order to cross the different areas outlined above. The first theme aims to raise awareness of the uniqueness of modern man. In fact, in the Eurasian space, other humanities, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, who are irreducible otherness and with whom modern man has lived and exchanged genes, no longer exist. Similarly, neither the other humanities of Southeast Asia, such as Flores man, nor those of East Africa, such as Naledi man, have survived.

The second theme deals with the notion of cultural evolution over a period spanning the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic in the Eurasian region. This period is analysed on the basis of artefacts such as rock paintings, Mesolithic burials and camps, and Neolithic sites such as Göbekli Tepe and Çatal Hüyük in present-day Anatolia, as well as funerary art from this period in the Levant.

The third theme is a taxonomy of the metaphysical systems that have accompanied humanity since its beginnings, as suggested by the artefacts left by Neanderthals in the Bruniquel cave in the Tarn region of France. A method of study is indicated to analyse their respective complexity and their power in terms of their ability to mediate. The study shows that metaphysical systems are cultural organisms that emerge at a particular moment in history, develop, overlap, diversify and then disappear, each with its own life span.

The fourth theme deals with metaphysical systems as resources for intellectual creativity in the arts and sciences. Within this framework we analyse, among other things, the potential of Nāgārjuna's writings in logic and theoretical physics, those of Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming of the Neo-Confucian stream in theoretical physics, and those of Christianity in logic and mathematics.

The fifth theme analyses the ways in which metaphysical systems intervene in the management of humanity's critical realities in order to propose perspectives, provide solutions or innovate with respect to the resources available to date. These critical realities include, but are not limited to, the chaos that individuals and peoples inevitably introduce into the public arena, relationships with others as individuals and as constituted groups, cultural creativity, species consciousness, and the meaning of existence.