From Modernity to Cosmodernity

Basarab Nicolescu is President of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Honorary Researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research, both in Paris, France, and Professor at the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania. He is the author of several books, including Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (translated by Karen-Claire Voss), also published by SUNY Press.

"…a breath of fresh air." — symplokē"…a profound and groundbreaking book … the intellectual contribution of this book is a form of beautiful, poignant, heart stopping art. It is an intellectual pièce de résistance; a creation that resists and defies orthodox or common conventions and practices (i.e., modernism), thereby making the whole of the creation unique and special (cosmodernism). Take a deep breath and read it, ideally from beginning to end, but even sampling it will change your life and open intellectual doors." — Integral Leadership Review"…[a] substantial book." — CHOICE

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction1. From Shattered Culture Toward TranscultureThe Christian Origin of Modern ScienceDo Science and Culture Have Something in Common?The Transcultural and the Mirror of the OtherThe Transreligious Attitude and the Presence of the Sacred2. Contemporary Physics and the Western TraditionTradition and TraditionsScience and Tradition: Two Poles of a ContradictionA Possible Bridge between Sciences and Tradition: The Rationality of the WorldDescribing God’s Being…Movement and Discontinuity: The Eternal Genesis of RealityScientific Thinking and Symbolic Thinking: Icons and ThêmataA Necessary Encounter3. The Grandeur and Decadence of ScientismThe Classical Vision of the World and the Death of ManModern Mahabharata-like Drama: The Quantum Vision of the World4. The Valley of Astonishment: The Quantum WorldAbout the Difficulties of the JourneyPlanck, Discontinuity, and the Quantum RevolutionThe Particle and Quantum SpontaneityHeisenberg’s Relations and the Failure of Classic DeterminismThe Multiplicity of Quantum Values and the Role of ObservationQuantum Vacuum: A Full VacuumQuantum Nonseparability5. The Endless Route of the Unification of the WorldIs a Single Energy the Source of the World’s Diversity?The Final Theory: Superstrings?The Unification of Heaven and EarthCan Everything Be Unified?Everything is VibrationThe Mystery TheoristsSeekers of Truth6. The Strange Fourth Dimension7. The Bootstrap Principle and the Uniqueness of Our WorldEddington and the Epistemological PrinciplesUnity and Self-Consistency: The Bootstrap PrincipleIs There a Nuclear Democracy?The Bootstrap and the Anthropic PrincipleMethodological Considerations8. Complexity and RealityThe Emergence of Complex PluarlitySome Reflections on Systemic ThinkingSystemic Thinking and Quantum PhysicsLevels of RealityIs There a Cosmic Bootstrap?Evolution and Involution9. The Human Being: The Most Perfect of All SignsNatural Language and Scientific LanguagePeirce and SpontaneityInvariance and ThirdnessThe Possibility of a Universal Language10. Beyond DualismA Stick Always Has Two EndsStéphane Lupasco (1900–1988): The Herald of the Coming ThirdThe Included ThirdThe Ternary Dialectics of RealityTriadic Systemogenesis and the Three MattersNonseparability and the Unity of the WorldThe Nature of Space-TimeIs Lupasco a Prophet of the IrrationalThe Experienced Third11. The Psychophysical ProblemReduction and ReductionismThe Coincidentia Oppositorum and Hermetic IrrationalismThe Core of the Problem: We Are Too Deeply Immersed in the Seventeenth CenturyThe Most Important Task of Our Time: A New Idea about RealityNew Perspectives in the Ternary-Quaternary DebateUmberto Eco’s Logical and Epistemological Error12. From the Quantum World to Ionesco’s Antitheater and Quantum AestheticsFor a Yes or for a NoIonesco and the Non-Aristotelian TheaterGregorio Morales: Quantum Aesthetics and Quantum Theater13. The Theater of Peter Brook as a Field of Study of Energy, Movement, and Interrelations14. From Contemporary Science to the World of ArtAndré Breton and the Logic of ContradictionGeorge Mathieu and Aristotle’s CageSalvador Dali and Nuclear MysticismFrédéric Benrath, Karel Appel, and René Huyghe15. Vision of Reality and Reality of VisionPoincaré and Sudden EnlightenmentHardamard and Thinking without WordsKepler and the Living EarthBohr and ComplementarityUnderstanding the Reality of the Imaginary: The Imaginary and the Imaginal16. Can Science Be a Religion?The Clowns of the ImpossibleHighlights of the New BarbarityBetween the Anecdote and the UnspeakableThe Sokal Affair: Beyond Three ExtremismsA Necessary IsomorphismThe End Science?The Spiritual Dimension of Democracy: Utopia or Necessity?17. The Hidden Third  and the Multiple Splendor of BeingPremodernity, Modernity, Postmodernity, and Cosmodernity as Different Visions of the Relation between the Subject and the ObjectLadder of Divine Ascent and Levels of BeingToward a Unified Theory of Levels of RealityAt the Threshold of New RenaissanceNotesBibliographyName IndexSubject Index