The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness - Hardcover

Wallace, B. Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195132076 ISBN 13: 9780195132076

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion. Alan Wallace draws careful distinctions between four elements of the scientific tradition: science itself, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism. Arguing that the metaphysical doctrine of scientific materialism has taken on the role of ersatz-religion for its adherents, he traces its development from its Greek and Judeo-Christian origins, focusing on the interrelation between the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. He looks at scientists' long term resistance to the firsthand study of consciousness and details the ways in which subjectivity has been deemed taboo within the scientific community. In conclusion, Wallace draws on William James's idea for a "science of religion" that would study the nature of religious and, in particular, contemplative experience.
In exploring the nature of consciousness, this groundbreaking study will help to bridge the chasm between religious belief and scientific knowledge. It is essential reading for philosophers and historians of science, scholars of religion, and anyone interested in the relationship between science and religion.

About this title

About the Author:

B. Alan Wallace teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Review:

"The Taboo of Subjectivity provides a commendable introduction to issues in the relation of science and religion that humanists with an interest in science will find accessible and reasonably persuasive, and its cross-cultural framework offers students of religion a rewarding illustration of comparative work."--The Journalof Religion

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0195132076
• ISBN 13: 9780195132076
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232