Sampling of Super, Meta and Emergent Postmodern Paradigms-
including proposals raised for specific disciplines-
with some of the dialectics involved.

 

Science- Anthropic Principle
The Anthropic Principle by F. Bertola, Umberto Curi. The questions that were purely in the realms of philosophy are now beginning to be answered by science. The second Venice Conference on Cosmology and Philosophy explores the anthropic principle which states that the Universe has the conditions we observe because we are here. Out of all possible universes we can only experience the restricted class that permits observers. This realization has profound implications for cosmology, philosophy and theology; all of which are explored in this book by thirteen contributors who gathered to discuss and share their theories within the context of science. Compares 'deterministic', 'Bayesian' and 'Heisenberg' paradigms. See also: Worldwide Conferences and Meetings on Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Science- Information
Granular Computing by Witold Pedrycz. The first comprehensive treatment of this emerging paradigm. Granular Computing is concerned with constructing and processing carried out at the level of information granules. Using information granules, we comprehend the world and interact with it, no matter which intelligent endeavor this may involve. The landscape of granular computing is immensely rich and involves set theory (interval mathematics), fuzzy sets, rough sets, random sets linked together in a highly synergetic environment.

Science- Medicine
Stem Cell Therapies as an Emerging Paradigm in Stroke (STEPS). Bridging Basic and Clinical Science for Cellular and Neurogenic Factor Therapy in Treating Stroke. The Stem Cell Therapies as an Emerging Paradigm in Stroke (STEPS) meeting was organized to bring together clinical and basic researchers with industry and regulatory representatives to assess the critical issues in the field. Investigators developing cellular therapy for stroke face many challenges. Preclinical models used for cellular therapy studies should be relevant to human stroke and predictive of benefit despite differences in stroke size, cerebrovascular anatomy, immune status, and neurological responses. Translating preclinical testing to human trials is compounded by consideration of delivery method and translation of dosing with cell survival.

Science- Oceanography
Phosphorus Deficiency in the Atlantic: An Emerging Paradigm in Oceanography by James W. Ammerman, Raleigh R. Hood, Darin A. Case, James B. Cotner. Nitrogen, iron, and silica are widely considered to be the most important nutrients that limit phytoplankton growth in the world's oceans. Though clearly important in lakes, the role of phosphorus has been largely ignored in the ocean. In part, this is because of early studies that suggested there was excess phosphate (P) relative to the needs of the phytoplankton in open ocean waters. Thanks to recent studies at the Hawaiian Ocean Time (HOT) series station (Station ALOHA) in the North Pacific subtropical gyre [Karl et al., 2001, and references therein], there is a growing appreciation of the potential importance of phosphorus as a limiting nutrient in subtropical Pacific waters.

Science- Biology
Science Never Ends: A New Paradigm is Being Born in Biology online book 2003, by Rafael Vicuna - How instrumentation and computer technology is providing data to accelerate the process of paradigm shifts in biology (and all fields of science).

Science- Archaelogy
Practice and History in Archaeology: An emerging paradigm by Timothy R. Pauketat, University of Illinois. A new paradigm is emerging in archaeology herein dubbed 'historical processualism'. A review of three contemporary approaches to the study of the past - neo-Darwinism, cognitive-processualism, and agency theory - suggests that the standard notions of 'behavior and 'evolution' are being replaced in archaeological explanations by 'practice' and 'history'.

Science- Data Mining
Data Mining Theory & Science Is automated data mining an emerging paradigm that can supersede hypothesis testing? Chong Ho Yu, Ph.D. (2007) The objective of this article is to evaluate the bold claim that automated search in the form of data mining can supersede conventional hypothesis testing as a new paradigm. Data mining is a cluster of techniques, including classification trees, neural networks, and K-mean clustering, which has been employed in the field Business Intelligence (BI) for years. According to Larose (2005), data mining is the process of automatically extracting useful information and relationships from immense quantities of data. Data mining does not start from a strong pre-conception, a specific question, or a narrow hypothesis, rather it aims to detect patterns that are already present in the data and these patterns should be considered relevant to the data miner.

 

Science- Physics Education
Paradigm Wars - Physics Education Research (PowerPoint synopsis) 2000

Science- Physics, Cosmology and Science of the Mind
Types distinguished by departures from the paradigm In modern physics (if interpreted realistically) however- matter is conceived as made up of such things as electrons, protons, and mesons, which are very unlike the hard, massy, stonelike particles of mechanical Materialism. In it the distinction between matter and energy has also broken down. It is therefore natural to extend the word Materialist beyond the above paradigm case (of mechanical Materialism) to cover anyone who bases his theory on whatever it is that physics asserts ultimately to exist. This sort may be called physicalistic Materialism. Such a Materialist allows the concept of material thing to be extended so as to include all of the elementary particles and other things that are postulated in fundamental physical theory- perhaps even continuous fields and points of space-time. Inasmuch as some cosmologists even try to define the elementary particles themselves in terms of the curvature of space-time, there is no reason why a philosophy based on such a geometricized cosmology should not be counted as Materialist, provided that it does not give an independent existence to nonphysical things such as minds.

Science- New Science
Holistic New Physics Efforts at composing metaparadigms to synthesize New Science and Metaphysics.

 

Consciousness
Paradigm Wars: Research at the Frontiers of Consciousness Interview With Marilyn Schlitz Ph.D. Interviewed By Daniel Redwood D.C.

Consciousness
Global Mind Change: The Consciousness Paradigm. Lawrence, KS Community Group, Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) In the past, paradigm shifts have occurred with great religious movements, but none of these has been global. For instance, for millennia, Eastern and Western religions have differed radically in their views of consciousness and the creation. It wasn't until the scientific method gained a foothold with the Copernican revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries that the cultures of East and West could come to a common understanding of the cosmos. However, the Copernican revolution wasn't quick. It began with Copernicus' heliocentric theory and ended 140 years later with Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Today, the scientific method is accepted in East and West alike. This means that propositions concerning the natural universe are evaluated by observation, not by their conformance to cultural idealsm, philosophical principles, or authoritarian doctrines. Of course, modern science still hasn't explained consciousness. In fact, neither consciousness nor life itself is even possible under the prevailing scientific paradigms. These anomalies are joined by telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, remote healing, memories of past lives, and a host of other phenomena commonly referred to as "paranormal" (i.e., deviations from the normal, or expected). And that, in a nutshell, is why we expect another scientific revolution and paradigm shift.

Consciousness- Holographic Paradigm

Paradigm wars: - worldviews for a New Age By Mark B. Woodhouse (See p221 chapter on The Holographic Paradigm) The Holographic Paradigm may be one of the most profound scientific developments in the past four hundred years. Major proponents neuroscientist Karl Pribram, physicist David Bohm, Fritjof Capra, Ken Wilber. Brain functions can be seen as quantum events describable by the same Gabor functions that Werner Heisenberg applied to quantum mechanics. This connection between brain processes, holograms, and quantum mechanics, supporters suggest, is no accident- but is viewed by mainstream scientism as pseudo science. See also The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

Consciousness- Cosmic Consciousness
Cosmic Consciousness Exploring the credibility of evidence that a cosmic consciousness is the ground for all being and physical reality. See also links to alternative paradigms.

Consciousness
The New Paradigm of Consciousness by Peter Russell. Evolutionary Theory - An Esalen Invitational Conference, 1999. Peter Russell’s presentation centered upon perhaps the most intriguing and difficult question of the entire conference: what is consciousness? Russell wasted no time in asserting that consciousness is the anomaly in the current scientific paradigm. We truly cannot account for it in our current worldview. Thus, Russell proposed that the true paradigm shift will occur when we embrace a new meta-paradigm that sees consciousness as fundamental and everything else as derivative. In the current paradigm, space, time, and matter constitute the primary 'things' of reality. They are the

 

Darwinian Epistemology
The Darwinian Paradigm: Essays on Its History, Philosophy and Religious Implications by Michael Ruse 1989 Will a new synthesis emerge, signaling a true paradigm shift in the Kuhnian sense? (Science 1980) The word 'paradigm' is just about the most over-used in the philosophical lexicon. In fact, professional philosophers tend to avoid it like the plague, and today it is much more commonly used by sociologists, scientists, and journalists such as Roger Lewin, quoted above. Part of the problem is that the word 'paradigm' is as slippery as the word 'God'. Everyone who uses it means something slightly different. Too frequently the term is used as a propaganda tool, bolstering the pretensions of some supposed major breakthrough: paradigm founder today, Nobel prize winner tomorrow, burial in Westminster Abbey the day after that. See also Amazon

 

Social Sciences
Gouldner's child? Some reflections on sociology and participatory action research.(Alvin Gouldner) 2005 Sociology had come alive to 'the great paradigm wars' between positivism and reflexive interpretivism (Blaikie, 1993; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Cicourel, 1964; Ford, 1971; Giddens, 1976; Kuhn, 1973; Reinharz, 1979). It was a boom time for sociology engaging outside universities. In 1976, the annual sociology conference was held in the context of a culmination of a long economic boom, and a period of intense change. Expanded government funding of new services was taking place in response to changing 'community needs'. Women, for example, had emerged from the post-war home, seeking educations and jobs. People instutitutionalized for their differences were demanding to live in ways others took for granted. Manufacturing industry was moving off-shore and the economy 'structurally readjusting'. And new waves of non-English-speaking settlement communities--from Turkey, Egypt, South America and Asia--were facing difficult futures and uncertain employment.

Social Science
Dialectical Social Science David Walls Professor Emeritus of Sociology Sonoma State University "Dialectical Social Science," from Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology, edited by Scott G. McNall This definition of dialectic as the mutually formative relationship between humans and society allows us to situate dialectical social science in relation to earlier efforts, overlooked or ignored by Ritzer, to ground a classification system for sociological theories in alternative epistemological bases for social science. Positive sociological theories approach sociology as a natural science (including neo-­positivism, human ecology, structural functionalism, social behavioral­ism, and bio-psychological theory of culture). Interpretative sociology approaches sociology as a social science as opposed to a natural science (including theory of cultural understanding, interpretative sociology of action and interaction, interpretative social psychology, and social phenomenology). and the social sciences.

 

Environment- Greenhouse Gas
Carbon Management - The Emerging Paradigm for the Oil Industry by Ashok B. Chakraborty, SPE, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), New Delhi, India. Globally there is concern on the rising concentration of CO2 as it is one of the six Green House Gases (GHG) considered responsible for Global warming. Scientifically concluded, the anthropogenic (man-made) GHG are contributing to Global warming. The resultant effect is 'Climate change which is now perceived to be one of the global risk factors, the business faces.

 

Environment- Gain Paradigm
Global Consciousness Change: Indicators of an Emerging Paradigm by Duane Elgin with Coleen LeDrew. What is a paradigm? Willis Harman gives a definition that we find very useful: A paradigm is "the basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing, and doing associated with a particular vision of reality." As the world's senior scientists have warned, the industrial era paradigm is now generating far more problems than it is solving. The only way the human family can understand and solve these problems is by shifting to a larger paradigm that includes the entire Earth as a living system. Such a transformation seems to be underway. Peter Drucker, the well-known management expert, is just one observer who believes that the western world is undergoing a paradigm change: See also Millennium Project

Environment- Gaian Paradigm
Gaian Paradigm by Bill Ellis "The three themes of this book are 1. Our world view or paradigms are shaped by our cultural nurturing; 2. There are no evil paradigms but just cultures we do not understand; 3. The technology that connects us to each other reveals the cosmos as one and makes possible a new direct democracy in which all people can make decisions to improve their lives."

 

Psychology
Paradigm Wars Psychology by Rhona S. Weinstein1 1991, Psychology Department, University of California, 94720 Berkeley, California -positivistic/interperetive

Psychology- Early Childhood
Early Childhood psychology (PowerPoint synopsis of paradigms for research approaches)

 

Health and Social Education
The Mixed Methods Reader By Vicki L. Plano Clark, John W. Creswell - Examines the Paradigm Wars in Health and Social Educational Theory - logical positivism versus constructivism. A model for mixed methods research.

Attention Deficit Disorder
ADD Paradigm Challenges the Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder consensus, its legitimization and the ongoing controversies that surround the diagnostic category.

Vitamins
Vitamin Paradigm Wars

 

Education- Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking: Expanding the Paradigm by Mark Weinstein. The practice of critical thinking in North America, where it has taken root, splits into two focuses-each with characteristic methods and theoretic underpinning. The first, and a progenitor of the current effort, is the undergraduate critical thinking or informal logic course, drawing justification and pedagogical strategies that grow out of the traditional role of logic as a mechanism for supporting thoughtfulness. The second focus, reflecting a variety of trends in pre-college education-including those in developmental and cognitive psychology, curriculum theory, problem solving, and "hands on methods" in science, in addition to elements of formal and informal logic, has resulted in a wide variety of materials suited for integration into existing subject matter, particularly in the elementary school, as well as comprehensive explorations of teaching and learning. This latter, generally identified as the critical thinking movement, is, in addition, focused on deeply comprehensive recommendations for educational reform.

Adult Education
Research Paradigms in Adult Education: A Dialectical Account by Derek Briton University of Alberta. Abstract: This paper suggests that adult educators can employ the notion of "dialectic" introduced by Hegel and employed extensively by Marx in his materialist critique of modernity to construct a schema that allows the relations among positivist, interpretive, critical, and postmodern modes of analysis to be examined. How, men, are adult educators to understand or ascertain the worth of fundamentally different modes of inquiry if there is no common standard on which to base their judgement? This is where Hegel's notion of dialectic proves especially fruitful, for it allows paradigms to be judged not in terms of some external, metastandard but in terms of their own internal standards.

 

Religion- Christianity East and West
Na Geo Dec 1983 p736 The Byzantine Empire - Byzantine obsession with order...so threatening was change that ritual reforms in the 17th century Russia split the church. Old Believers endured unspeakable tortures and martyred themselves in mass suicide rather than make the sign of the cross with three fingers instead of two. Ritual details widened the rift between Rome and Constantinople in the 11th century. Until then East and West shared a common faith and heritage. The break came in 1054, when Rome and Constantinople exchanged excommunications. The Latins had added Filioque to the Nicene Creed, making it read that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; they also used unleavened rather than leavened bread in the Eucharist. Absurd that East and West should sunder over a phrase and a pinch of yeast? Not when eternal salvation seemed at stake. This was the lesson of Byzantine monasticism. I saw men bend their necks to the yoke of obedience and, through self-denial and punctilious repetions of ritual, follow unquestioningly an ordained path of salvation. For as Orthodoxy was central to Byzantium, monasticism, ever the conserver of traditions, is the living heart of Orthodoxy.

Religion
More Moral Than God By Charlene Burns. More Moral Than God takes a unique look at the psychological motivations behind religious violence. Drawing from psychology, philosophy, and theology, Charlene Burns illuminates the interplay between our images of God, our individual egos, and our collective selves, and brings to light the degree to which each of us can and must take responsibility for the religious landscape.

Religion- Anthropic Principle
Resolving the Goldilocks Enigma - an Evidence Based Approach by Anthony Kelly (Faculty of Education, Humanities, Law and Theology, Flinders University) The Goldilocks question: "Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?" is answerable but neither of the two main answers considered by Paul Davies, the existence of an interventionist 'hands-on' God or the existence of a Multiverse, is convincing. The evidence provided by Cosmology and by the process of Emergent Evolution shows the Universe to be a purposeful process involving the self-organisation of Matter and Life and the self-creation of Humanity. The Universe exists for a purpose. The world is humanity's 'do-it-yourself' kit. Examines the postmodern processes involved in the paradigms shifts from religious faith to science and the emergent holistic paradigm.

Religion
The Rhetorics of Revelation and Reason by Angela Balla, University of Michigan In early modern England, toleration as an idea and as a set of practices emerged in response to widespread epistemological anxieties. Reformation disputes over the true standard of religious knowledge, the rediscovery of Greek Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus' writings, and the growing influence of Peter Ramus' thought seriously undermined traditional sources of knowledge in the sixteenth century, enveloping believers and nonbelievers alike in confusion. Nor was the brunt of the upheaval limited to cultural elites, for puritan attacks on the liturgy disrupted the corporate experience of conviction for all who attended, regardless of the nature or the extent of their faith. While Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli postulated the Word and the Spirit as the only sources of truth in matters pertaining to individual salvation and godly fellowship, John Calvin added to these sources the experience of certainty. Calvin's considerable influence in England ensured that his emphasis on the experience of certainty as a source of truth predominated. Far from resolving believers' anxieties about their spiritual status, Calvinist theology intensified them. As the decades wore on, many engaged in persecution and even bloodshed in attempts to resolve the uncertainties that differing religious practices spawned.

Religion
History of Religion How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

Religion
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris: lecture on religious faith - Video: Part 05. Book - Wikipedia The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004) is a book written by Sam Harris, concerning organized religion, the clash between religious faith and rational thought, and the problems of tolerance towards religious fundamentalism. Harris began writing the book in what he described as a period of "collective grief and stupefaction" following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book comprises a wide-ranging criticism of all styles of religious belief.

Religion
Medieval Sourcebook - Europe's history is one of interdenominational strife and bloodshed. Other Subresourses: African History; East Asian History; Indian History; Islamic History; Jewish History; Women's History; Global History; History of Science.

Religion
Jonathan Swift's Journey of Religious Satire Xiang Xu - College of Foreign Language, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266061, China. Through close reading of Jonathan Swift's religious works and his novel, this paper traces his deepening critical attitudes towards religion. According to his writing time sequence, the targets of his ridicule become larger and larger, from Roman Catholic and Puritans, to the declining Christianity, and to all religions in general, which reflects his uncompromising stance as an Enlightener.

Religion - Skeptical
The Skeptic World Site - Sapere Aude - Dare to Know! See also Skeptical Theism

Religion
Ondoctrine Open Theism is a very sinister and deceitful heresy of the highest magnitude. ...they are loud in their opposition to classical theism. The perceived danger is for panentheism to appear too much like the heresy of pantheism. A common strategy of open theists is to denounce "classical" notions of .... And we might do well to hold both models in some kind of dialectical tension.

Religion - Atheism
Against Atheism (and theism and agnosticism) by James Lamont In this essay I shall explain why I feel that the contemporary atheist movement misunderstands the nature of theism. I shall argue that the incoherence of the attributes of god make the statements 'god exists' or 'there is a god' meaningless sentences, which cannot be subject to truth or falsity conditions. I shall conclude that, ironically, atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris lets theism off too lightly.

Religion
The Dialectic of Transcendence and Immanence in Contemporary Western and Indian Theories of God by David Peter Lawrence - Division of Humanities, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The various theorists in question contend that traditional understandings of God or the religious Ultimate Reality place too much emphasis on His/Her/Its transcendence of this world They propose an alternative understanding of God as paradoxically both transcendent of this world and immanent within it. The process philosopher Charles Hartshorne has established the common use of a term for this view, which was originally coined by the early 19th century German idealist Karl Christian Friednch Krause, viz, "panentheism'"

Religion
A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN by Brian McClaren. See review by Matt Benzing, Librarian, 2005.

Religion
Zarathushtra The orthodox see not the absurdity of remaining in bondage to the customs of the infant humanity, when it was in swaddling clothes. They are wedded to the beliefs and practices, good and bad, that have come down to them through a long past and whose origin lies buried on obscurity. Blindly do they believe on the dogmas of the bygone days of their primitive ancestors. Stubbornly do they refuse to deliver themselves from the yoke of bigotry fostered by priestcraft. The mere mention of reform acts upon them like a red rag on a bull. They are daggers drawn over the controversy with the reformers. They indulge in hair-splitting purelities. Charlatanism thrives on credulity and superstition.

Religion
The Faith of the Christian Church By Tyron Inbody - dialectical theism - God both immanent and transcendent

Religion
Pantheism By Michael P. Levine Classical Theism, Dialectical Theism, (Ramanujua- God is a person, the world has a substantive reality)

Religion
Christopher Hitchens National Post, Published: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 Caught between paradigms: Obstacle or opportunity- a comment on the commentaries. In a new book, world-renowned iconoclast and atheist Christopher Hitchens presents his brief against God and those who worship Him. His conclusion: Whether in the form of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or Wicca, "religion poisons everything". Even though sura 5:60 of the Koran condemns particularly Jews but also other unbelievers as having been turned into pigs and monkeys -- a very intense theme in recent Salafist Muslim preaching-- and the Koran describes the flesh of swine as unclean or even "abominable," Muslims appear to see nothing ironic in the adoption of this uniquely Jewish taboo. Real horror of the porcine is manifest all over the Islamic world. One good instance would be the continued prohibition of George Orwell's Animal Farm, one of the most charming and useful fables of modern times, of the reading of which Muslim schoolchildren are deprived.

Religion
Belief and Bloodshed By James K. Wellman Intended for students as well as scholars of religion and violence, Belief and Bloodshed: Religion and Violence across Time and Tradition discusses how the relationship between religion and violence is not unique to a post-9/11 world -- it has existed throughout all of recorded history and culture. The book makes clear the complex interactions between religion, violence and politics to show that religion as always innocent or always evil is misguided, and that rationalizations by religion for political power and violence are not new. Chronologically organized, the book shows religiously motivated violence across a variety of historical periods and cultures, moving from the ancient to medieval to the modern world, ending with an essay comparing the speeches of an ancient king to the speeches of the [previous] U.S. President.

Religion
Religion and the God Concept From the Center for Process Studies - Biliography: Process Thought, Transpersonal Thought, New Paradigm, New Thought, and New Age Thought 1998

 

Religion- Islam and Western Modernity
Faith in the future: Islam after the Enlightenment by Abdal-Hakim Murad, First Annual Altaf Gauhar Memorial Lecture Islamabad, Pakistan 2002. Bismi'llahi'r-Rahmani'r-Rahim - Your excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, may I express my warm gratitude to you all for paying me the compliment of attending today? It is particularly gratifying to me to attend an event in this country, the only state established in recent history specifically as a homeland for Muslims. It is also a privilege to be associated with the name of the late and revered Altaf Gauhar, whose translations from the Qur'an certainly formed, back in the late 1970s, part of my own personal journey towards Islam. I want to talk about religion - our religion - and address the question of what exactly is going on when we speak about the prospects of a mutually helpful engagement between Islam and Western modernity. I propose to tackle this rather large question by invoking what I take to be the underlying issue in all religious talk, which is its ability both to propose and to resolve paradoxes.

Religion- Islam- Shia-Sunni Schism
Analysis: The Shia-Sunni schism By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent 2007. Shias revere direct descendants of Mohammed, the Muslim prophet, while Sunnis believe religious leaders do not necessarily have to belong to the house of Mohammed. Around this difference centuries of feuding have been built. In ancient times Shias and Sunnis met on the battlefield. No quarter was given in the fight for the soul of Islam and the blood shed in those early battles is still venerated by both sides.

Religion- Postmodern Islam
Islam, Christianity and Modernity: Question and Answer by Gregory Johansson. For example, everywhere one looks the 'network' paradigm is undermining and breaking up traditional religious and societal hierarchies. The Internet and satellite TV networks are acting as catalysts here, and so perhaps more clearly than ever before, the average Muslim is able to hear the many voices and interpretations - or 'souls' - that make up Islam. Perhaps this was the most important aspect of the Reformation: the breaking up of monolithic Christianity into many interacting discourses. If this is the case, then maybe Islam [is undergoing] the equivalent of the Reformation already?

Religion- Islamic Politics
Political Islam and Historical Materialism - An Exchange Analyzing Political Islam: A Critique of Traditional Historical Materialist Analytic by Tariq Amin-Khan (Samir Amin's Response) [Can an Islamic paradigm of modernity evolve?] Militant Islam has become an influential religious and social force in many post-colonial states.2 The militants face very little by way of real political opposition within Muslim-majority societies, but they are now targeted and attacked militarily by the United States, other Western imperial interests, and client post-colonial states. But, there is little by way of understanding political Islam from a historical materialist perspective. Some months back, however, Samir Amin offered his traditional historical materialist analysis of political Islam, 2007 and very briefly touched on a range of issues, such as modernity, secularism and imperialism.

Religion- Islam and Modernity
The Challenges of Non-Western and Post-Secular Modernity by Nathan Gardels, editor 2008. Here we begin to see the terms of the new dialectic as non-Western modernity and post-secularism settle across the globe. We are discovering something new in the 21st century: modernity can be non-Western and post-secular. This is illustrated by the renaissance of Chinese civilization that is emerging along with rapid economic growth, the governance of Turkey's secular state by an Islamist-rooted party, the broad-based endurance of faith in affluent, technologically advanced America and the turn of secular Europe's political and intellectual leaders toward a preoccupation with the role of religion in society.

Religion- Islam and Modernity
Review of Richard K. Khuri, (1998) Freedom, Modernity and Islam: Towards a Creative Synthesis. by Mim Kemal - Bosphorous University, Istanbul, Turkey. Modernity has reached several saturation points, so that there is more room than ever for the reconstruction of its moral and spiritual failings. If modernity consequently begins to show a mature and considerate face than it has of late, Islam is likely to relax its defensive posture, restored to confidence through the fact that its greatest offerings are concentrated in modernity's greatest failings. This condition would be the best possible one for the meeting ground between Islam and modernity. The fruit will be a dynamic synthesis, in which modern innovation and creativity are allowed to transform Islam while Islam helps return modernity to the high moral values and spiritual impulses that were present at its origins.

Religion- Cults
The Rick A. Ross Institute Organization is devoted to public education and research. RI's mission is to study destructive cults, controversial groups and movements and to provide a broad range of information and services easily accessible to the public for assistance and educational purposes. RI maintains a large archive on the Internet and is available to assist researchers, the media, professionals and those concerned with accurate information about various cults, groups and movements and related issues of interest. See also http://www.cultnews.com Rick Ross Cult Watch.

 

Philosophy - an Interactive Journey
The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach by William Lawhead PDF version (2016) The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach, is a text/reader which enhances comprehension of philosophical study by allowing the reader to ponder, explore and actively participate in the learning process. Philosophy becomes a personal journey to students through Bill Lawhead's innovative and unique pedagogy which delivers philosophical concepts through more digestible chunks.

Philosophy- Ethics- Evil
The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil by Claudia Card, 2005. What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Is hatred a necessarily evil? Are some evils unforgivable? Are there evils we should tolerate? What can make evils hard to recognize? Are evils inevitable? How can we best respond to and live with evils? Claudia Card offers a secular theory of evil that responds to these questions and more. Evils, according to her theory, have two fundamental components. One component is reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm -- harm that makes a life indecent and impossible or that makes a death indecent. The other component is culpable wrongdoing. Atrocities, such as genocides, slavery, war rape, torture, and severe child abuse, are Card's paradigms because in them these key elements are writ large.

Philosophy- Ethics
How Good People Make Tough Choices by Rushworth M. Kidder. The four paradigms of ethical dilemmas.

Philosophy- Anthropic Principle
Emergent Probability and the Anthropic Principle by Kenneth R. Melchin - Bernard Lonergan sees emergent probability as accounting for a world process that involves six generic notions: (1)spatial distribution; (2) absolute numbers; (3) long intervals of time; (4) selection; (5) stability; and (6) development.1 The anthropic principle affirms a relationship between the emergence of human life on planet earth on the one hand, and on the other hand, the extraordinary properties of the cosmic conditions necessary for this emergence.

Philosophy- Anthropic Principle
The Anthropic Principle as Philosophy and Religion Anthropic Principle: A Precise Plan for Humanity Anthropic Principle by Hugh Ross. The importance of the anthropic principle can hardly be overstated. It returns legitimacy and respectability to the human species as a worthy, even primary, subject of scientific research. Further, the anthropic principle has the potential to bring about a paradigm shift arguably as profound as any shift in human remembrance.

Dialectic Philosophy of Enlightenment
The Abortive Meeting : Habermas, Foucault and Enlightenment by Kyungjun Sung. Kant's question What is Enlightenment - Habermas and Foucault agree that Enlightenment is still "an incomplete or permanent project" worth pursuing, notwithstanding the various dangers of manipulation, coercion, terror, and destruction, as articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in The Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Philosophy of Existence
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated Series: Philosophical Studies Series , Vol. 89 Vallicella, W.F. 2002. What is it for any contingent thing to exist? Why does any contingent thing exist? For some time now, the preferred style in addressing such questions has been deflationary when it has not been eliminativist. In its critical half, this book thoroughly analyzes and demolishes the main deflationary and eliminativist accounts of existence, including those of Brentano, Frege, Russell, and Quine, thereby restoring existence to its rightful place as one of the deep topics in philosophy, if not the deepest. In its constructive half, the book defends the thesis that the two questions admit of a unified answer, and that this answer takes the form of what the author calls a paradigm theory of existence. The central idea of the paradigm theory is that existence itself is a paradigmatically existent concrete individual. In this way the author vindicates onto-theology and puts [paid] to the Heideggerian conceit that Being cannot itself be a being.

 

World View- New Age
Paradigm Wars: Worldviews for a New Age by Mark Woodhouse. "Imagine a yogi, a teacher, a physicist, a social visionary, a physician, a parapsychologist, a theologian, a feminist, a psychotherapist, and an ecologist engaged in dialogue." Key Phrases: hierarchical interpenetration, perennialist vision, empowering cooperation, Great Chain, Rising Culture, Perennial Philosophy.

World View- Integralism and New Age

Distinctions in Integralism Very extensive thread started by Julian Walker on issues in intergrative theories and New Age world views. "In the two previous installments we discussed (in part one: The Power of Worldviews) a research-based developmental theory of worldviews from Ken Wilber's Integral Theory that integrates the work of many others from various fields and (in part two: Spiritual Kitsch, Paranoid Process and Relativist Nihilism) we looked at some of what happens when the Postmodern worldview gets distorted into extreme relativism. This tendency toward extreme relativism ironically undercuts its own powers and creates the kind of confused regression that results in the all too popular pre/trans-fallacy-based New Age worldview. The New Age worldview is not limited to kitsch spirituality, but like all worldviews, has a set of guiding beliefs that creates a lens through which everything is perceived."

 

Politics- Tyranny of Liberalism
United in Hate: The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror WorldNetDaily, 2009. It's a book that will make so-called 'progressives' see red. In United in Hate: The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror, author Jamie Glazov says there's an unholy alliance between jihadists and people like Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Ted Turner and Noam Chomsky, and, at the heart of the mutual admiration is a willingness to accept massive numbers of deaths to achieve their objectives.

Politics- Tyranny of Liberlism
The Tyranny of Liberalism By Israel Shamir - Israel Shamir.net, 2006. A Talk given at the conference on Religion in the International Relations: Liberalism and Tradition, International Relations Faculty, St Petersburg State University, 24 November 2006 Modern Liberalism is the dominant paradigm in the US, and it plays a major role in Europe, in post-Soviet Russia and elsewhere. This line is preached by the powerful world-wide mass media syndicate whose elements are ostensibly independent yet they transmit the identical message James Petras has called The Tyranny of Liberalism. A 'liberal tyranny' may strike some as oxymoronic if not a contradiction in terms since Liberalism likes to represent itself as the neutral ground of freedom rather than as an ideology and as an arbiter of religious pluralism and freedom rather than an anti-religious ideology. Liberalism is the ideology than denies that it is such a thing; ask a liberal and he will tell you he is against the dominance of any ideology or of any religion.

In our attempt to pierce this protective colouring we shall apply some ideas of the late German thinker Carl Schmitt who learned of liberalism the hard way. After Germany was subdued and conquered in 1945, Carl Schmitt lived for a while in the Soviet and the American occupation zones, which had later been converted into the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. On the basis of his comparative experience in the occupation, Carl Schmitt noticed that American Liberalism is a militant ideology less prone to compromise than Soviet Communism. The Americans demanded that Schmitt give proof of belief in Liberal Democracy, while the Russians never asked him to swear an oath upon the Communist Manifesto.

 

Globilization
Globalization and the Project of Modernity by Brian Milstein. Describing what he calls "the postnational constellation," Jürgen Habermas argues that globalization processes are threatening not just the regulatory powers of the nation-state but the very bases of cultural and political solidarity upon which it is built. Globalization challenges the state's ability to prioritize an equitable domestic policy, its territorial integrity, its collective identity, and its political legitimacy. The state is being forced into "retreat" by the unregulatable expansion of markets across national borders. Innovations in technology and finance have allowed for an unprecedented increase in transnational economic activity, such that capital flows and business practices can no longer be regulated from within the domestic sphere - on the contrary, it is transnational economic networks that are determining domestic policies: "Where states were once masters of markets, now it is the markets which, on many crucial issues, are masters over the governments of states.

Globilization- Futures Field
Paradigms in Futures Field by Eva Hideg, Corvinus University of Budapest, 2015 - Concept and methodology in meta-theory-level research of paradigm; The concept of paradigm in science philosophy; The concept of paradigm according to Kuhn; Conclusions of science philosophical considerations related to paradigm; Meta-level research of paradigms; Meta-theory research embedded in scientific practice; Evolution of paradigm, crisis of paradigm and search for a way out in futures field.

 

War and Anti-War
War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century By Alvin and Heidi Toffler, 1993. Tofflers insist that we need to rethink how we make war and how we make peace. For all the advantages of "sanitized" warfare, the authors point to the increasing threats of nuclear terrorism, chemical and biological weaponry, genetically engineered "superplagues," and other horrors of technologically-aided warfare. These underscore the importance of "anti-war" efforts aimed at preventing war, or at least making it less terrible. The authors sketch a preventive strategy for peace that includes the sharing of information technology to halt weapons proliferation and the creation of a "rapid reaction contingency broadcasting force" capable of beaming news anywhere in the world.

National Security
War, Information, and History: Changing Paradigms by Elin Whitney-Smith, Ph.D. 1996. Introduction: The Problem - We are experiencing what some have called a crisis of will and others a loss of patriotism. War has become a spectator sport. Let us imagine for a moment, what we would have felt if our war hero Scott Brady was not rescued. All the media attention would have been focused on how his friends and family felt at his loss. We do not just see heroes home and happy we also see body bags. It difficult if not impossible for us to fight a war with such an individualized focus. The nature of what constitutes a threat has changed. We used to feel threatened by a foreign power's strength; by their weapons and armies. Now we are threatened by foreign power's weakness and poverty. We can be brought to the bargaining table by boatloads of sick and poor instead of their young and strong-armed. It happened with Haiti and again with Cuba. This is a complete reversal of the ordinary power equation.

Terrorism
Terrorism & Historical Sociology by Gavin Cameron and H. D. Munroe. Recent critical scholarship on terrorism, as a topic for academic analysis, has bemoaned the state of the field. Some criticism, such as the problem caused by an inability to reach a widely accepted definition of terrorism, is almost universally accepted. Andrew Silke, early in his 2004 overview of the state of field, quotes two scholars that the -debate over an acceptable definition is 'the most confounding problem in the study of terrorism.' So relentless is the bickering that 'it is unlikely that any definition will ever be generally agreed upon'. One prominent author, Walter Laqueur, writing in the 1970s, neatly captured the essence of the challenge: Any definition of political terrorism venturing beyond noting the systemic use of murder, injury and destruction or the threats of such acts toward achieving political ends is bound to lead to endless controversies. Some terrorist groups have been indiscriminate and their victims are 'symbolic', others have acted differently. Some merely wanted to create a climate of fear, others aimed at the physical destruction of their opponents. It can be predicted with confidence that the disputes about a comprehensive, detailed definition of terrorism will continue for a long time, that they will not result in a consensus and that they will make no notable contribution toward the understanding of terrorism.

 

Technology- Cyber Wars
Cyber Wars: A paradigm shift from Means to End Abstract by Amit Sharma - Defence Research and Development Organization, Ministry of Defence, Government of India. Cyber wars; cyber warfare; information warfare; strategy and doctrine.

Technology- Information Theory
Information Theory and Chaos Shannon and Weaver's Information Theory. Information Theory, originally developed by Claude Shannon for Bell Telephone Laboratories, was originally published in 1948. It is a highly abstract, general mathematical theory of communication. Shannon hoped that it could be used as a model for all types of communication, whether human, animal, cellular, or mechanical. In human communication its application is also very broad. Warren Weaver, in his paper explaining the theory said, The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This may include speech, vocalics, proxemics, music, dance, or any other form of human communication. Super Computer and Mathematical Modeling In this report. I will show how Mathematical Modeling and the Super Computer have changed our lives. What effect it has had on past, present and in the future of man kind.

Education- Method and Technology
CSCL, Theory and Practice of an Emerging Paradigm By Timothy D. Koschmann. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning A Brief History of CSCL Research, A Paradigmatic Example of CSCL Research. The critical point is that there has been no consensus with respect to the basic terminology for describing interaction in these settings, and it is probably premature to try to establish a definitive paradigmatic status that replaces prevailing psychological formulations.

 

Finance and Economics
New Paradigm for Financial Markets by George Soros, 2008 Video (time-1:23:32) What is the political danger for nascent democracies of the financial meltdown. Will the financial crises lead to over or under regulation, is U.S. dominance changing with respect to oil-producing countries, given the declining price of oil, how does Soros reconcile his former role as a hedge fund manager with his political activism and phlanthropy?

       

Metaparadigm- Reality Synthesis
Links to Vedanta & New Physics Metaparadigms Some online articles and papers exploring the pros and cons for the effort to compose a synthesis between metaphysical (primarily Vedantic) and new physics concepts for modeling a consciousness metaparadigm.

Metaparadigm- Reality and Consciousness
A New Superparadigm? (Excerpted from book From Science to God) by Peter Russell. All our scientific paradigms are based on the assumption that the physical world is the real world, and that space, time, matter and energy are the fundamental components of reality. When we fully understand the functioning of the physical world, we will, it is believed, be able to explain everything in the cosmos. This is the belief upon which all our various scientific paradigms are based. It is, therefore, more than just another paradigm; it is a metaparadigm-the paradigm behind the paradigms. As we begin to explore what Ken Wilber calls "the more tender end of the spectrum" we find systems that take a more spiritual stance. In trying to pin down consciousness, science may find it has embarked upon a course that will ultimately lead it to embrace spirit and -- dare we say it -- God and lead to the evolution of a superparadigm. To the scientific establishment, rooted in the physicalist worldview, this is anathema (but so was the notion of the solar system four hundred years ago).

Meta Paradigm- Cognitive Maps
A Metaparadigm or Sharable Framework Cognitive Panorama in education, knowledge organisation, ethics, governance. Objective: To counteract Cyberculture's anticipated impact due to its 1.) 'open- ended' universality, 2.) loss of meaning, and 3.) loss of context, impact, as reflected in the metaphor of the 'Second Flood' (Lévy 1996), the proposal of a 'Cognitive Panorama' allows us to embody and map concepts in their context and develop 'common frames of reference'. The proposed Conceptual Superstructure defines and identifies topics as logical places, displays relations, and connections within this topics or issues, and helps us in this way to locate and become aware of 1.) what we know and miss, 2.) where we are and what we think, and 3.) where we mis-, under-use or manipulate information. By avoiding a 'flat' chaotic mess of data which leads to the known 'lost- in-space' syndrome, we actually define cognitive spaces, making use of the known orientational and organisational benefits. Through reflection on conceptual positions, outlining and embodying situations or topics (logical places or containers), we can follow meaning into embodied context and semantic spaces and also scrutinise abstract 'realities' by exploring participatory and collaboratory approaches.

'Changing Visions': This book, with the sub-title: Human Cognitive Maps - Past, Present, and Future', (Laszlo, Artigiani, et al.) is basic to understanding the idea of combining new and old visions. A central switch or translator for multi- sensorial/medial information and combined references and representations was previously postulated by Michael Gazzaniga as a central function of the brain, and it can be seen also as 'anticipatory schemata' (Neisser 1976). 'Changing Visions' elaborates such a top-down approach to patterns of information. By matching patterns we can share creative thinking in 'image schemas', as George Lakoff called metaphors, as we can mentally navigate and visit items (lateral or diagonal thinking). 'Changing Visions' is recommended not only as a Primer, but also to help realise the potentials of evolutionary cognitive maps.

The basic benefits of natural-science-based evolutionary cognitive maps, as summarised in 'The New Evolutionary Paradigm' (Loye 1990) are: 1.) improved forecasting, 2.) improved interventional guides, 3.) participatory rather than authoritarian problem-solving, and 4.) providing clearer long-term goals and humanistic images. To address such wide objectives it was necessary to test and apply the above schema in fields ranging from education and knowledge organisation, to ethics and governance. Combining bird's eye and worm's eye views is definitely a bigger picture. It allows us to see and share much clearer positions and responsibilities, be co-creative, and last, but not least, to be more humble, the more we gaze and learn to talk about 'how little we know'.

Metaparadigm- Social Science, Especially Economics and Political Science
Revisiting New Institutional Economics as a Meta-Paradigm by Amit Karna, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.
Abstract: This paper is aimed at looking at New Institutional Economics (NIE) as a meta-paradigm i.e. group of paradigms that has common roots and has evolved over a period of time as an integrative theory. In the last two decades, the field underwent considerable development, and an attempt is made here to collate it on a framework and find out the way ahead. NIE has developed as a movement within the social sciences, especially economics and political science, which unite theoretical and empirical research examining the role of institutions in furthering or preventing economic growth. The essential idea of NIE is that the success of a market system is dependent upon the institutions that facilitate efficient private transactions. Simply put, NIE tackles social, economic, and political institutions that govern everyday life. It takes a wider view and approach to issues that are considered under categories of law and economics, applied industrial organization, public policy, and other specialties. NIE is seen by many as an extension to neo-classical economic theory by incorporation of property rights and transactions costs into the orthodox frameworks for analysis so as to better explain economic behavior. The paper looks at the field right from the evolution of the field, discusses the analytical perspective, differentiates it from the traditional institutional economics, discusses criticism versus the defense and finally looks at the future prospects for the field.

Metaparadigm- Ethnicity
Afrocentricity Afrocentricity As The African-american Studies Metaparadigm. Afrocentricity presents itself as the African-American studies metaparadigm. As such, it includes three major aspects: cognitive, structural, and functional. It is Afrocentricity's contention that unless African scholars are willing to reexamine the process of their own intellectual conversion, which takes place under the guise of "formal education," they will continue to be the easy prey of European intellectual hegemony. What is suggested, instead, is that African intellectuals must consciously and systematically relocate themselves in their own cultural and historical matrix, from which they must draw the criteria by which they evaluate the African experience.

Metaparadigm- Epistemology
Paradigms Lost and Pragmatism Regained Methodological Implications of Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods by David L. Morgan, 2007 - In hindsight, Kuhn wished that he had used a different term like disciplinary matrix to summarize the various forms of group commitments and consensus that we now associate with paradigms. Schwandt referred to paradigms as "worldviews" and beliefs about the nature of reality, knowledge, and values - a mixture of the two versions of paradigms I call "worldviews" and "epistemological stances".

Beyond Kuhn: Toward the Meta-Paradigm
by Scott J. Simon. As Kuhn defines it, a paradigm is a set of theories, ideas, abstractions, beliefs that "provide models from which spring particular traditions of scientific research".1 Examples of paradigms include Aristotelian dynamics, Copernican astronomy, Newtonian optics, and Einstein’s theories of relativity. A paradigm shift is a crisis brought on by conflict between two or more paradigms, in which the 'fittest' paradigm survives. There is no synthesis: Kuhn claims that paradigms are incommensurable (incompatible), hence the crisis; the resulting change is comparable to a revolution. Implicit in this argument is the claim that science is an instrument for solving problems. Thus, Kuhn’s evolutionary model of science calls into question the teleology (purpose) of the scientific enterprise. As Kuhn states, "we may...have to relinquish the notion...that changes of paradigm carry scientists closer and closer to the truth."

   

Pseudo Paradigms
Science and Scientific Discovery A PowerPoint introduction to the scientific process, 2005: Kuhn's paradigms; Karl Popper's falsifiability, pseudo-paradigms. For Kuhn, science is distinguished from pseudo-science by the existence of a paradigm. Progress only occurs within the set of assumptions and rules that define what is worth studying, what is known, and what particular observations mean; that is, progress occurs only within paradigms. Ironically, during periods of revolutionary science, scientists are not really "doing" science.

Pseudo-science and Metaphoric Operativity: Making the Case for a Cognitive Model of Scientific Change by Rocco J. Perla - Department of Clinical Microbiology and Diagnostic Immunology, HealthAlliance Hospitals, Leominster, MA and James Carifio - Graduate School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA. Abstract: Pseudo-scientific and 'fantastic science' beliefs have long been recognized as a significant impediment to the aims of science literacy among students and the general population. Nevertheless, many philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science as well as psychologists and scientists believe that aspects and dimensions of what is today labeled pseudo-science has provided (and still provides) the creative and generative foundation to science and scientific knowledge through metaphoric as opposed to logical operativity, because it has far fewer cognitive constraints than 'normal' science. The purpose of this paper is to provide an initial attempt to model the process by which a pseudo-scientific commitment (by today’s standards) evolved into and contributed to a truly scientific commitment, and to demonstrate how cognitively-based changes in epistemological standards were necessary for this transition to occur. Specifically, this paper will model the development of the concept of syphilology from the mystical to the pathological to the purely etiological described by Fleck (1935/1976) in his now classic book Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact from a cognitive perspective.

BACK TO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

MAYA-GAIA INTRODUCTION & SITEMAP