|
|
 |
|
|
Philosopher Setting Out to Reclaim Space
for the Spiritual in the Physical World
|
William Jaworski, Ph.D., is seeking to reclaim the philosophical ideas of Aristotle.
Photo by Michael Dames
|
|
By Maja Tarateta
William Jaworski, Ph.D., is nothing if not audacious.
An assistant professor of philosophy at Fordham University, Jaworski has essentially rejected more than three centuries of philosophical assumptions in an effort to retrieve a view of human nature originally held by Aristotle.
“After the 17th century, the natural world was divested of value,” he said. “As a result, if you now say that the mental, moral or spiritual is something physical, people react in one of two ways: Either they say ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s all just chemical reactions,’ or they say, ‘No. There’s more to human life than that.’
“They don’t see this is a false dichotomy,” he said, “based on a view of nature, mind and spirit that gained currency only in the 17th century.”
Jaworski specializes in the philosophy of mind, a branch of the field concerned with the nature of mental functions and consciousness and their relationship to the physical body. He also has a strong background in the history of philosophy and for him, it is high time we took a closer look at Aristotelian philosophy as a way of reclaiming a workable understanding of spirituality in a scientific age.
“Mind and spirit are biological phenomena, but they are not reducible to biochemical interactions,” he said. “Being moral or spiritual doesn’t make something non-biological, nor does it make it reducible to interactions among atoms and molecules. It implies instead that the natural world is invested with beauty and meaning, value and spirit.
“Biological phenomena have moral and spiritual significance, and moral and spiritual significance are species of biological phenomena,” he said.
Jaworksi said that Aristotle believed that we are constantly striving to live lives filled with love and learning, freedom, peace and joy, and his ideas would become the dominant worldview for hundreds of years.
“Once you start thinking of the
spiritual as something otherworldly, you’re going to
have trouble reconciling it
with science.” |
|
“His ethical framework was adopted by Jews, Christians and Muslims,” Jaworski said. “They all adopted the philosophy of this pagan, and added the principles of their own faith traditions. Aristotle claimed we are social animals, we can live well only in community with one another. They extended the idea of community to include God.”
The scientific revolution changed everything. Jaworski said that Aristotelian science was wrong “in almost every respect,” but at the time people didn’t distinguish clearly between science and philosophy. In rejecting Aristotelian science, people also rejected his philosophy, replacing it with a philosophy of dichotomies: mind vs. body, freedom vs. determinism, fact vs. value.
Moreover, that 17th-century outlook has led to philosophical quandaries about the compatibility of science and religion.
“Whenever I read criticisms of religion by people like Richard Dawkins or Dan Dennett, I often agree with their scientific starting points,” he said. “ I think, ‘Yes, science shows us this and that. But how is that relevant?’ They really have no understanding of revealed religion.”
But many religious people are equally confused.
“Once you start thinking of the spiritual as something otherworldly, you’re going to have trouble reconciling it with science,” he said. “You’ll either end up insisting we’re spooky, nonphysical entities, or you’ll end up denying our spiritual natures. If you’re pro-science, you can’t endorse the first option, and if you’re pro-religion, you can’t endorse the second.”
To Jaworski, what we need to make sense of our place in the natural world is a “bio-morality, a bio-spirituality” of the sort suggested by Aristotle.
“We need to reformulate the Aristotelian worldview in terms contemporary philosophers can understand, ” he said, and that is the aim of a book he is writing.
For this father of five, the next several years will be an exciting time as he publishes the first book and begins working on the second that he describes as “a comprehensive survey of mind-body theories.”
He knows his ideas will be controversial, but he’s not one to shy away from a good argument. And he’s already begun incorporating some of his insights into the classroom, challenging both graduate and undergraduate students to grapple with issues of mind, body and spirit.
“These issues are too important to leave to professionals,” he said.. |
More Top Stories in this issue:
Return to In Focus: Faculty and Research index
Return to Inside Fordham home page
Copyright © 2007, Fordham University.
|
|
|
|
