My original studies were in the area of German and Russian language and literature at Merton College Oxford, followed by a DPhil at Wolfson College Oxford on the work of Paul Celan, a German Jewish poet who wrote remarkable poems about the Holocaust. Life has taken me to many different places, and I have had the opportunity to teach at universities in Germany, Russia, Italy, USA and China. I held the chair of Christian Doctrine at King's College London from 2004-2017. From 2017 I moved to a post in China, and from 2018-21, I held a Senior International Research Chair in Science, Ethics, and Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, Beijing. It was during this period that I discovered just how different Chinese culture is. Where we are relatively strong, they are relatively weak; and where we are relatively weak, they are relatively strong. Under these circumstances it was impossible not to feel that we need to work together in the interests of our rapidly evolving planetary needs.
But what kind of planetary approach are we talking about? The critical question is not whether we can all agree about politics and international law. In fact, we can be confident that we won't find much agreement there. China and the West have different histories. But what does contemporary science tell us about the things we potentially have in common? Social neuroscience and evolutionary science are currently generating far-reaching innovations in how we can understand ourselves, as human beings. Increasingly, human structures or 'constants' are emerging which occur across our cultural diversity. As this new science, or new understandings of the human, gathers pace, new opportunities for bridging difference are coming into view. Here theory has an important clarificatory role to play. Most important of all however is the fact that we are creatures who have a fundamental need to belong. Belonging in our family, our community, in our place or home, all involve forms of practice which point to open embodiment and so also, by implication, to different kinds of planetary awareness. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that gender also has an important role to play here. I can say, as a man, that women are closer - more deeply embedded in the world - than most men are. There is a 'birth to presence' or what Jean-Luc Nancy describes as 'the sense of the world' which is generally more developed in women than men; and from which men can learn.
Whether and how quickly we can develop such a new integrated science of human bonding, is difficult to predict. Real interdisciplinarity can still seem to be in its infancy, in the face of the narrowness of disciplinary definitions and demands. On the other hand however, viewed from a genuinely interdisciplinary perspective, our human narratives may take on a power and a simplicity far beyond our hopes.
But what kind of planetary approach are we talking about? The critical question is not whether we can all agree about politics and international law. In fact, we can be confident that we won't find much agreement there. China and the West have different histories. But what does contemporary science tell us about the things we potentially have in common? Social neuroscience and evolutionary science are currently generating far-reaching innovations in how we can understand ourselves, as human beings. Increasingly, human structures or 'constants' are emerging which occur across our cultural diversity. As this new science, or new understandings of the human, gathers pace, new opportunities for bridging difference are coming into view. Here theory has an important clarificatory role to play. Most important of all however is the fact that we are creatures who have a fundamental need to belong. Belonging in our family, our community, in our place or home, all involve forms of practice which point to open embodiment and so also, by implication, to different kinds of planetary awareness. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that gender also has an important role to play here. I can say, as a man, that women are closer - more deeply embedded in the world - than most men are. There is a 'birth to presence' or what Jean-Luc Nancy describes as 'the sense of the world' which is generally more developed in women than men; and from which men can learn.
Whether and how quickly we can develop such a new integrated science of human bonding, is difficult to predict. Real interdisciplinarity can still seem to be in its infancy, in the face of the narrowness of disciplinary definitions and demands. On the other hand however, viewed from a genuinely interdisciplinary perspective, our human narratives may take on a power and a simplicity far beyond our hopes.
NEW ARTICLES
2023: 'Openness in Action': Early Steps in Cosmic Phenomenology.
The Heythrop Journal, 2023, pp. 205-214.
HeyJ LXIV (2023), PP. 205–214
2022: The architecture of creditions: Openness and otherness
Front. Psychol., 21 September 2022,
fpsyg.2022.926489
2021: Love as Belonging: Towards an Interdisciplinary Understanding of the Human, in Paul Fiddes, ed., Love as Common Ground, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., Chapter 14. ISBN 1793647801
2021: 'Cosmic Christianity', Chapter 32, Mary Ann Hinsdale and Steven Okey, eds., T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropology, 397-407.
2021: 'Science, Philosophy and the Authority of the Early Franciscan Summa Halensis: Learning from the Past for the sake of the Future', in Lydia Schumacher, ed., The Legacy of Early Franciscan Thought, De Gruyter, 373-97.
2020: 'Grace in Evolution', in Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes, eds., Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology. Dialogues in Humility, Wisdom and Grace, Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York, 228-42.
2018: Confucianism in the Perspective of Global Science—A Review of 'Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century'
Front. Philos. China 2018, 13(1): 150–163
DOI 10.3868/s030-007-018-0010-2
2023: 'Openness in Action': Early Steps in Cosmic Phenomenology.
The Heythrop Journal, 2023, pp. 205-214.
HeyJ LXIV (2023), PP. 205–214
2022: The architecture of creditions: Openness and otherness
Front. Psychol., 21 September 2022,
fpsyg.2022.926489
2021: Love as Belonging: Towards an Interdisciplinary Understanding of the Human, in Paul Fiddes, ed., Love as Common Ground, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., Chapter 14. ISBN 1793647801
2021: 'Cosmic Christianity', Chapter 32, Mary Ann Hinsdale and Steven Okey, eds., T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropology, 397-407.
2021: 'Science, Philosophy and the Authority of the Early Franciscan Summa Halensis: Learning from the Past for the sake of the Future', in Lydia Schumacher, ed., The Legacy of Early Franciscan Thought, De Gruyter, 373-97.
2020: 'Grace in Evolution', in Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes, eds., Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology. Dialogues in Humility, Wisdom and Grace, Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York, 228-42.
2018: Confucianism in the Perspective of Global Science—A Review of 'Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century'
Front. Philos. China 2018, 13(1): 150–163
DOI 10.3868/s030-007-018-0010-2
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