Unveiling the power of interdisciplinary collaboration, we delve into the fusion of sciences and humanities. A journey that challenges the notion 'great minds think alike', and instead, celebrates the diversity of thought and the innovation it sparks.
Science and the humanities have been antagonistic for too long
Many of the big questions of our time require them to work closer than ever
- There is a new culture emerging, inspired by questions old and new
- Intellectuals of all disciplines are needed to guide this culture
- In 2016, Antonio Damasio joined philosopher David Chalmers in a conversation on the “Mystery of Consciousness”
- The mission was to bring scientists and humanists together in constructive engagement
A wiser model of progress
There is a new culture emerging, inspired by questions old and new that reside at the very core of our pursuit of knowledge.
- The choices we make now as we shape our curricula, create academic departments and institutes, and engage in discussions with the general public, will shape the nature of intellectual cooperation for decades to come.
Promoting a civil discourse
We live in times when civil discourse is seriously threatened by bigotry and tribal entrenchment.
- My hope with the different activities related to the institute and with the conversations registered in this book was to show how people can engage in a fruitful exchange of ideas, even when there is disagreement.
No More Turf Wars
The split between the sciences and humanities is largely illusory and unnecessary
- Developments in the physical, biological, and neurosciences now leave such narrow-minded antagonism looking problematic and corrosive
- Many of the key issues of our times call for constructive engagement between the two cultures
Beyond the Two Culture Divide
“I believe the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups.”
- C. P. Snow in his famous The Two Cultures Rede Lecture delivered at Cambridge University in 1959
- The two-culture split has come to symbolize a wider and growing gulf in academia between the sciences and humanities
- It cuts directly to the heart of the liberal arts curricula of schools across the globe and to the widespread yet markedly wrong perception that the humanities are an anachronism in a world driven by technology
Finding where disciplines meet
We must reach beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries and create truly cross-disciplinary ways of thinking.
- Who we are and what we are form an irreducible whole
- It is more than just academic questions that call for the sciences and humanities to come together
A New Understanding
The 17th century marked a turning point in human intellectual history
- What we now call the sciences started to chart their own path away from the Greek philosophical tradition
- Direct experimentation and data analysis empowered them to describe a variety of terrestrial and celestial phenomena with mathematical precision
- Their spectacular success changed the way we understand the cosmos and our place in it
Science as a Culture
As influential thinkers promoted science as the sole source of “truth,” the humanities lost some of their clout
- The relentless ascent of scientific thinking brought the contempt of many humanists who considered themselves as the only worthy intellectuals
- Most scientists returned the disdain, considering the humanities to be worthless for their intellectual pursuits
- Frontiers of knowledge broadened and academic departments multiplied
