Life of the World: Beyond Mind/Body Dualism to Embodied Emergence
This paper will consider the dominant system of ideas — a dualistic metaphysics that dichotomizes mind and body — explicate its inadequacy and harmfulness for the present, and advocate a different nexus of ideas to allow the continuing conversation about ourselves, our place in the world, and a spir...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
HUC
2010
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| In: |
Hebrew Union College annual
Year: 2008, Volume: 79, Pages: 193-254 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | This paper will consider the dominant system of ideas — a dualistic metaphysics that dichotomizes mind and body — explicate its inadequacy and harmfulness for the present, and advocate a different nexus of ideas to allow the continuing conversation about ourselves, our place in the world, and a spiritual sense of unity and meaning to emerge in a way that does not require us to deny what we know from other sources, denigrate our world and ourselves, or maintain a false hierarchy based on gender. The solution that I will sketch integrates three mutually-supportive sources: cognitive science, metaphor theory, and panentheism and process theology. Cognitive Science: Our sensorimotor system interacts with the world in a way that cannot be reduced to objective or subjective, but is interactional, relational, and embodied. Metaphor Theory: Broadening the understanding of metaphor beyond poetry and literature, abstract human thought and speech is primarily, if not always, metaphoric — that is to say, interactional, relational, and embodied. Panentheism and Process Theology: Transcending the dichotomy of transcendent unity (philosophical theism) versus immanent, deterministic totality (pantheism), I will articulate an understanding of God as both transcendent and immanent, as the life of the world and its source, with real creativity and freedom for humanity and all of creation itself. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual
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