This document provides a book review of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man. The summary is:
The reviewer provides a detailed analysis of Teilhard de Chardin's book, noting its popularity but also critiquing some of its philosophical and theological arguments. While praising Teilhard de Chardin's synthesis of diverse fields, the reviewer argues the book fails to reconcile its premise that the soul is biochemical with its assertion that physical elements contain psychic aspects. The reviewer also argues Teilhard de Chardin does not adequately address issues of culture and ethics. In 3 sentences or less, the review provides a high-level critique of Teilhard de Chardin's arguments about evolution,
This document provides a book review of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man. The summary is:
The reviewer provides a detailed analysis of Teilhard de Chardin's book, noting its popularity but also critiquing some of its philosophical and theological arguments. While praising Teilhard de Chardin's synthesis of diverse fields, the reviewer argues the book fails to reconcile its premise that the soul is biochemical with its assertion that physical elements contain psychic aspects. The reviewer also argues Teilhard de Chardin does not adequately address issues of culture and ethics. In 3 sentences or less, the review provides a high-level critique of Teilhard de Chardin's arguments about evolution,
Original Title
[American Anthropologist 1962-apr vol. 64 iss. 2] Paul Friedrich - GENERAL AND ETHNOLOGY_ The Phenomenon of Man. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1962) [10.1525_aa.1962.64.2.02a00180] - libgen.li
This document provides a book review of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man. The summary is:
The reviewer provides a detailed analysis of Teilhard de Chardin's book, noting its popularity but also critiquing some of its philosophical and theological arguments. While praising Teilhard de Chardin's synthesis of diverse fields, the reviewer argues the book fails to reconcile its premise that the soul is biochemical with its assertion that physical elements contain psychic aspects. The reviewer also argues Teilhard de Chardin does not adequately address issues of culture and ethics. In 3 sentences or less, the review provides a high-level critique of Teilhard de Chardin's arguments about evolution,
This document provides a book review of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man. The summary is:
The reviewer provides a detailed analysis of Teilhard de Chardin's book, noting its popularity but also critiquing some of its philosophical and theological arguments. While praising Teilhard de Chardin's synthesis of diverse fields, the reviewer argues the book fails to reconcile its premise that the soul is biochemical with its assertion that physical elements contain psychic aspects. The reviewer also argues Teilhard de Chardin does not adequately address issues of culture and ethics. In 3 sentences or less, the review provides a high-level critique of Teilhard de Chardin's arguments about evolution,
The Phenomenoia of M a n . PIERRETEILHARD de CHARDIN.Introduction by JULIAN HUXLEY. Translated into English by BERNARD WALL. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1959. 318 pp. appendix, 4 diagrams, index. $5.00. Keviewed by PAULFRIEDRICH, Uwivrrsity of Pennsylvania For the entire year following its publication in December, 1955, Le Ph&aom&ie Huncaine sold more copies in France than any other work of nonfiction; the original and the present translation by B. Wall were extensively treated in American journals ranging from Time to the metaphysical reviews and were widely read by American intellectuals in all walks of life except, perhaps, some anthropological ones. These pragmatic indices place Le Phe‘trombne in the extremely small class of works which, like Kon T i k i and Patterns of Culture, have stirred a n echo in the hearts and thought of a vast international audience. The book’s status as a succts de saison was due in no small part to its nearly approaching a succts de scandal; as widely advertised in the reviews, Father Teilhard had continued in the Jesuit order mhile writing it and had given orders lor its publication just before his death despite definite orders to the contrary from his ecclesiastical superiors. Following Huxley’s rather personalized theoretical introduction, we read in the foreword: “Seeing. We might say that the whole of life lies in that verb-if not in the end, a t least in essence. Fuller being is closer union; such is the kernel and conclusion of this book” (p. 31). Then come chapters entitled ‘*The Stuff of the Universe,” “The Within of Things,” “Demeter,” “The Deployment of the Noosphere,” “Love as En- ergy,” “The Ultimate Earth,” “The Christian Phenomenon,” and so forth, with a con- cluding appendix on cvil in evolution. A sweeping and imaginative survey, in short, of the events leading lrom gaseous, galactic energies to the first living cells to primates with memories to Christian love. Presumably, Christians who are not active in science may acquire here a sense of our contemporary knowledge of evolution and some respect for the exploration of its depths. And thc anthropologist, whether or not a Christian, can get some inkling of the significance to other humans, especially the French con- servative kind, of the evolutionary horizons that he is wont to think of in the clipped, technical terms of “solutions to problems.” Among the book’s merits is the author’s challenging personal synthesis of diverse currents in the human knowlcdge whose dignity he so hopefully affirms. The substratum is a primitive poetic mode reminiscent at times of the Vedic hymns. Second, while hailed as an attempt to reconcile Thomistic theology with the scientific theory of evolu- tion, the book is actually more concerned with certain Augustinian ideas of memory and conceptualization and, by implication, with doctrinal conflicts that began early in the Christian era. Third, a t many points one recognizes the style of French human- ism, notably of Blaise Pascal; both writers were preoccupied with man’s fate in a uni- verse of infinite vastness. But Teilhard’s optimism about our moral condition and about the future “Omega point” where the subjective and the objective side of things become identical seems naive and simple-minded to this reviewer when contrasted with the awesome humility of his predecessor. Figuring prominently as a fourth theme 381 382 A merican Anlhropologisi [64, 19621 is Father Teilhard’s interpretation of modern science and, most concretely, the British manner of evolutionary studies to which he was so closely linked. On the negative side, Teilhard fails to reconcile two antithetical or a t best comple- mentary positions. He asserts that the soul is a biochemical process and that the phys- ical elements are suffused with psychic stuff: the within and the without of things. Now the former premise is scientifically fruitful because it leads to a cumulative, tested knowledge about the biochemistry of psychic phenomena. The second premise may lead to a psychologically sophisticated sociology of knowledge or to the poetry of Loren Eiseley. I n Teilhard’s case it conduces to the following (fairly typical) sentence: “The coalescence of elements and the coalescence of systems, the spherical geometry of the earth and the psychical curvature of the mind harmonizing to counterbalance the i n - dividual and collective forces of dispersion in the world and to impose unification- there a t last we find the spring and secret of hominization” (p. 213). Second, much of Le PhCnombne is pointed toward the evolution of human self- awareness and sensitivity, a domain supposedly not subject to the second law of thermodynamics. But Teilhard’s adumbration of this so-called “noosphere” (contrast- ing with lithosphere, and so forth), totally ignores the wealth of trenchant and general ideas about social organization and personality constructs, that is, of culture, which have been accumulating ever since Morgan. Teilhard, then, is a physical anthropologist in a less complementary sense of the word. M y final objection is essentially ethical. Since the great part of Le Phdnombne is based on the naturalistic premise, that evolution is explicable through natural law without reference to divine law, the final portions come as a non sequitur. How does Christianity hold priority over other ethical systems? Buddhism might actually fit Teilhard’s over-all scheme much better. In light of certain rudimentary Kantian argu- ments, it seems highly doubtful that one could ever develop a workable science of ethics. Father ‘Teilhard, like his Protestant contemporaries, has failed to do so. I n the context of what we have learned to know in this century it has become a bit obsolete to “reconcile Christian theology with evolutionary theory” and somehow morally trivial even to regard the question as particularly significant. Because the crucial issues now are neither epistemic nor lheological, but ethical. Or, as Camus has so powerfully insisted, the glaring human phenomenon of this century is: mass torture and mass murder. To an understanding of this stage in evolution, Teilhard’s solipsistic vision contributes precious little.
Darwin and the Modern World View. JOHN C . GREENE.(Rockwell Lectures, Rice Uni- versity.) Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961. viii, 141 pp., notes. $3.50. Reviewed by MORTONH. FRIED,Colunibia Universily Barely a year ago I had the pleasure of reviewing John C. Greene’s admirable The Death of Adam (AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST 63 :392-93) and therefore approached the present volume with high expectations. Greene’s talents seemed eminently suited to the task of reviewing the interrelations between Darwinism and certain modern world views. His role of historian of science (he is Professor of History a t Iowa State Uni- versity) and particular interests in the development of theories of evolution seemed to qualify him for the important task of unravelling the many strands in the fiber of modern evolutionism in the social sciences. T o be sure, there were signs in the earlier book that Greene was discontented with science as ideology, but these were interpreted
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