Religious Studies: Cosmology, Anthropology and Science

Contents

The proposed course aims to show the rise in complexity of representations of reality through institutions and gestures relating to the question of meaning and the orientation of action, and this from the Upper Paleolithic to the present day, passing through the break that the axial turn operates. We will highlight the link between the emergence of cosmologies that are theories of global reality and the evolution of mental fluidity. Finally, we will approach the relationship between cosmologies by confronting their respective narratives.

The preceding data will allow us to draw lessons on the human being, on what the cosmological framework allows him to do according to his power.

Finally, we will see the aspect of cosmologies as cultural reservoirs. Thus, we will analyze how concepts such as the notion of sunyata in Nagarjuna, the Li/Qi couple of Zhu Xi and Huang Yang Ming of neo-Confucianism, the notion of mediation (fudosei) of Watsuji, etc. can be alternative ways of approaching reality in theoretical physics, biology, or ecology. More generally, we will see to what extent cosmologies could inspire a great science that would include qualia, or a great phenomenology that would include quanta.