Genesis of Symbolic Thought

Barnard, Alan

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139198707

Cited by 64 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 156 publications

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“…Fuentes is here in agreement with Deacon (1997), Donald (2001), King (2007), Barnard (2012) and Andrew Robinson (2010) that it is our place as a semiotic species, and the use of symbol as a core infrastructure of our perceptions in our perceptions of and dealing with the world, which act as a major factor, and thus as a hallmark of human evolution (cf. Fuentes 2014:12).…”

Section: Continuity and Change In Research Traditions: Niche Construcsupporting

confidence: 84%

Is there any hope for ‘truth’ and ‘progress’ in theological thinking today?

Huyssteen

2017

Verbum Eccles.

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To provide the historical-theological background to his own intellectual pursuit of interdisciplinary theology, Wentzel van Huyssteen tells his story that was prompted in his student days at Stellenbosch by the then young, newly appointed lecturer Johan Heyns. It sprung from the basic understanding and confrontation with the question: How is theology to be understood as a science? The very question became Van Huyssteen’s most basic research question for his academic career, guided by the deep conviction that Heyns adamantly proclaimed, namely that the content and methodology of theology could never be deduced from ‘the truth of revelation’ itself, but would in fact always be shaped by ‘a general theory of science’. For Van Huyssteen, this conviction pointed directly to the tentative and hypothetical nature of all theology. It helped him to put into words what would eventually become the defining character of his own theology, namely seeing the intellectual context of theology as a deeply cultural and contextual venture in which the sciences, politics and philosophy would play a defining role. This role is explicated in the article by focusing firstly on the structure of theological solutions, secondly on interdisciplinarity as challenge, subsequently on continuity and change, and lastly on problem-solving within a post-foundationalist theology.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: A post-foundational approach argues for the interdisciplinary character of theology as science. The approach transcends traditional boundaries of theological, philosophical and social reflection, establishing an intellectual context of theology as a deeply cultural and contextual venture.

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Section: Continuity and Change In Research Traditions: Niche Construcsupporting

confidence: 84%

Is there any hope for ‘truth’ and ‘progress’ in theological thinking today?

Huyssteen

2017

Verbum Eccles.

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“…Fuentes is here in agreement with Terrence Deacon (1997), Donald (2001), King (2007), Alan Barnard (2012) and Robinson (2010) that it is our place as a semiotic species, and the use of symbol as a core infrastructure of our perceptions in our perceptions of, and dealing with the world, that act as a major factor, and thus as a hallmark of human evolution (cf. Fuentes 2014:12).…”

supporting

confidence: 83%

“…Barnard 2012;Boehm 2012;Donald 2001;Sosis 2009;van Huyssteen 2014;Wildman 2009). In addition, Àgustin Fuentes also argues that evolutionary answers to the question of the origin of such systems might not lie in the specific content of religious beliefs, or only in neurological structures themselves, but rather (at least partially) emerge out of the way in which humans successfully negotiated the world during the terminal stages of the Pleistocene (Fuentes 2014:3).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Lecture One: Rediscovering Darwin for theology – Rethinking human personhood

Huyssteen

2017

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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In a series of three articles, presented at the Goshen Annual Conference on Science and Religion in 2015, with the theme ‘Interdisciplinary Theology and the Archeology of Personhood’, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen considers the problem of human evolution – also referred to as ‘the archaeology of personhood’ – and its broader impact on theological anthropology. These Goshen Lectures explore the potentiality that the history of human evolution provides bridge theories to theological anthropology and thus to a positive and constructive way of appropriating Darwinian thought for a public, interdisciplinary Christian theology. Lecture One tracks a select number of contemporary proposals for the evolution of aspects of human personhood. These aspects were of significance for Darwin: the evolution of cognition; the evolution of imagination, music and language; the evolution of morality; and the evolution of the religious disposition. The article acknowledges the close ties to hominid ancestors and focuses on the emergence of human distinctiveness, consciousness and personhood, and the propensity for religious awareness and experience.

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“…Upon analysis, several challenges of both a scholarly and practical nature have been identified, in particular related to the exploration of human capacities, opinions, and behaviours. From a fundamental point of view, these could, for instance, contribute to current debates on the genesis of cognition, language, and symbolic thought (e.g., Barnard, 2012), as well as to the burgeoning body of literature which questions the "representationalist" framework in which the problem of beginnings is usually cast within anthropology and within science more broadly (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987 is the locus classicus; but see especially Ingold, 2000 for a critique of the idea of "points of origin"). Also, an in-depth study of the role of early meat traditions in the rise of metaphorical thought may yield important insights, underlining their entwinement with the development of human societies and biologies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%