Neo-Integrative Worldviews
* Article: The rise of neo-integrative worldviews Towards a rational spirituality for the coming planetary civilization? By Roland Benedikter and Markus Molz.
URL = https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Rise-of-Neo-Integrative-Worldviews-1.pdf
Description
"This chapter provides an introductory overview of contemporary developments in the field of worldviews related to neo-integrative efforts. The current constellation in the European-Western hemisphere is witnessing a significant increase in ‘spiritually’ informed paradigms that claim to be at the same time ‘rational’. Though these paradigms sometimes deploy ambiguous concepts of ‘spirituality’ and ‘rationality’, have very diverse features, are not infrequently opposed to each other and are of varying quality, their common core aspiration can be said to be, in the majority of cases, integrative, inclusive and integral. These terms imply an attempt to reconcile spirituality and rationality, transcendence and secularism, as well as ‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’, with the goal of building a more balanced worldview at the heart of Western civilization than the ones we have had so far, which have by and large been biased either towards secular nominalism, on the one hand, or religious transcendentalism on the other. To put the current attempts at and developments toward integrative worldviews into perspective, this text first lists some of the most important features of the current worldview constellation in the Western hemisphere; second, problematizes some of the paradigmatic attempts towards integrative, inclusive or integral thought of the present, including some transitional movements between the late 1960s and today; and third, outlines a view of some of the currently most influential tendencies and trajectories towards integral worldviews, i.e. towards the conciliation of rationality and spirituality. The result of our critical investigation of this topic is that, if deployed appropriately, i.e. in full accordance with the rules set by contemporary academic scrutiny, integrative worldviews may provide at least potentially useful ‘layers of stratification’ (Thomas Fararo) as tools complementary to the ones we have in mainstream science and culture, in order to facilitate the build up of a more balanced civilizational paradigm appropriate to the needs of the upcoming first ‘planetary civilization’ (Michiko Kaku, Jennifer Gidley). Adapted to the bigger picture of the pressing questions of today, neo-integrative worldviews may potentially contribute (self-)critical blueprints for dealing inclusively with some of the most important challenges of our time."