A project of Metanexus LSI in conjunction with leading universities in Europe, made possible by the support of the John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia , USA .

The SophiaEuropa project was designed to create and support interdisciplinary dialogue societies on individual campuses worldwide, with the goal of breaking down disciplinary and other intra-institutional barriers. As a result of creating so many of these societies in so many geographical, cultural, and religious contexts, a global network began to develop that is producing results greater than the sum of its parts. Universities from across Europe will found local dialogue societies with the express purpose of pursuing a new, joint research project, addressing broad questions about the impact of the new technologies on culture, the structure of consciousness, and the nature of science.

This project will accomplish at least three major goals. First, it will create 15 new local societies at leading institutions throughout Europe . Second, it will support focused interdisciplinary research-oriented collaborations between the members of these societies, thus also creating new alliances between the institutions which host the groups. These efforts at networking and collaboration will generate a synergy that promotes new forms of research. Third, the program is designed to be a pilot project upon which other high-level collaborative research projects may be built in the future.

General Structure and Process

The research project will organize itself into three workgroups consisting of five societies each, with each workgroup concentrating on a different overall thematic. Each workgroup has a coordinator, and the entire program is directed by an over-view coordinator, Prof.DDr.Antonio Russo, and a steering committee that consists of the three workgroup coordinators and the director of the LSI program Dr Eric Weislogel. It should be noted that the opportunity for expanding participation in the project is great. There is already interest from more than 15 universities, and workgroups may be expanded.

Description of each Workgroup

Workgroup A: Nature, Intentionality and Finality

Co-ordinator: Antonio Russo, University of Trieste

The aim is to demonstrate that science is changing its nature. Many of the developments in the various fields of research converge in claiming that a new idea of science is under development. The “fact-value” divide is fading and, as a consequence, the dialogue between science and theology presents new opportunities.

This workgroup will research collaboratively issues about nature, intentionality and finality, considering particularly the transition from collecting experimental data (nature) to interpreting them philosophically and theologically (intentionality and finality). Studying the boundary between knowledge of experimental sciences and that of philosophy and theology makes possible focusing on some fundamental aspects and ideas concerning the relation between the two disciplines. One of our societies is interested in developing a recognition of the importance, in an increasingly science-oriented world, of the metaphysics and philosophical theology of Austin Farrer, an English philosopher and theologian, who was well acquainted with the thinking of Aristotle and Aquinas. Another will explore the research field of “determinism versus freedom”—the concept of freedom (essential for modern philosophy and theology) and the concept of determinism (essential for all natural sciences) raise questions that lie at the core of the “two-culture” debate. Another topic will be concentrated around the concept of “proof” both in mathematics and theology. The investigation will start from a philosophy-of-science point of view as a common framework for natural science and theology. To overcome these difficulties the groups will work on the relation of mathematics to theology. In addition, the one of the societies will take up the on-going, neuro-scientific, philosophical debate with a new theological perspective. In Germany , the interdisciplinary discourse has focused mainly on philosophy and neuroscience, predominantly discussing definitions of freedom and the determination of human resolve. The discussion will include the question whether the correlation between physiological and psychological processes can be described adequately by an interdisciplinary approach, and how these processes can be interpreted theologically.

Societies and General Workplan:

1) University of Trieste

2) University of Oxford

3) University of Heidelberg

4) University of Tübingen and University of Freiburg im Br.

5) University of Louvain-la-Neuve

6) University of Paderborn

Each local society will work on different topics (cognitive sciences at Heidelberg ; mathematics, philosophy and theology at Tübingen-Freiburg; theology and so-called-hard-sciences at Oxford ; physics, philosophy and theology at Trieste , etc.). The selected topics will be investigated from a theological and a philosophical point of view. For this reason specific leading figures and/or research fields have been selected (Brentano, Maritain and Blondel for Trieste; Austin Farrer for Oxford; Cantor and Scholz for Tübingen; and various figures in the contemporary discussion in Germany about the phenomenon of conscience).

Workgroup B: Causality and Motivation

Co-ordinator: Roberto Poli, Mitteleuropa Foundation, Bolzano

The belief is widely held that the physical world is causally-driven. The world is one because a tangled web of causally-driven processes keeps it together. The actual world is the way it is, because it is the causally-driven outcome of its previous states. However, both the psychological and the social worlds cannot be articulated in causal terms only. Hereby, “motivation” is used as the most general term referring to whatever keeps (synchronically) together and provides (diachronic) reasons explaining the behavior of psychological and social systems. Biology does not fit easily with either picture. Organisms are part and parcel of nature but they cannot be reduced to a complex web of physical causes, causes that can merely explain the “mechanical” side of such organisms. No serious scholars deny that organisms contain and are based on many mechanisms. However, it cannot be argued that organisms are nothing else than (collections of) mechanisms. Something more is needed. At the same time, motivation does not work for organisms. Again, something else is needed.

This section of the project will address basic category issues. The aim is to sketch at least some fragment of the conceptual framework needed for understanding the various types of realities populating the world and their interrelations and will pave the way for acknowledging types of realities so far excluded from the realm of scientific entities.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Levels of reality (the material, the psychological and the social realms); their interconnections and their internal organization (the connection between physics and chemistry within the material stratum is different from the connection between art and politics within the social stratum);
• Emergence, supervenience, complexity;
• Forms of causality (the classical billiard-ball form of causality is understood as only one of many different types of causation; network and field-like types should be considered, together with upward (“emergence”) and downward (from higher to lower levels) types, and many other types as well);
• Types of motivation (taking decisions, building projects, planning, etc.);
• The concepts of person and agent;
• Biological, psychological and social forms of anticipation (“future-driven” behavior as opposed to “past-driven” behavior).

Societies and General Workplan:

The group in its final version is composed of five local societies, as follows:

1. Pontifical Gregorian University
2. University of Aarhus , Dänmark
3. Salesian Pontifical University , Rome
4. Mitteleuropa Foundation, Trento
5. University of Cassino and Pontifical University Sant'Anselmo

Most of the work conducted by these local societies will be rather exploratory, for a number of different reasons:

•  Firstly, each Local Society will primarily work on different areas of research (Action theories for the Gregorian, Social processes for Aarhus, General ontology for Bolzano , etc.).

•  Secondly, the selected areas of research will be addressed from both a philosophical and a theological point of view. For most of the cases, a main leading figure in both fields has been focused (for instance, Blondel for the Gregorian, Whitehead for Aarhus, Stein for Bolzano ).

•  Thirdly, both the connections among the different research fields and those among the chosen leading figures are far from being straightforward.

For these reasons, the project requires structuring on different layers of organization. Topically, three different tasks can be distinguished:

•  The local project individually conducted by each local society, developed according to the methodology and in the form chosen by each Local Society.

•  The elaboration of a conceptual framework able to facilitate the integration among the different research fields mentioned above.

•  The systematic comparison among the leading figures studied by the various Local Societies.

Workgroup C: Culture, Technology & Religion in Society

Co-ordinator: Eamonn Conway, University of Limerick

This thematic workgroup is founded on the premise that humans can engage with technology in a way that promotes human flourishing, but only if a high level of personal insight and freedom is achieved. The workgroup intends to show that religions and well-anchored spiritualities hold the key to enabling humans to enter into the right relationship with technology. This thematic workgroup will:

•  evaluate the impact of technology on culture and religion in Europe ;

•  identify forgotten or hidden potential for fruitful interplay between religions, spirituality, and technology;

•  propose strategies for spirituality and religions in enabling people to live ethically committed lives in a technological culture.

Societies and General Workplan:

The following institutions will host local societies as part of this thematic workgroup:

•  The Centre for Culture, Technology & Values, Mary Immaculate College, - University of Limerick ;

•  The Centre for Social & Family Research, Waterford Institute of Technology;

•  Salford University, UK ;

•  Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland;

•  Glenstal Benedictine Abbey; Ireland

Group 1 (CCTV, Limerick) will research and comment on emerging values in Europe, drawing in particular on the relatively untapped reservoir of the European Values Study most recently conducted in 1999 to assess the impact of technology on social and religious values. Group 2 ( Waterford ) will concern itself with what might be viewed as a subset of the work of Group 1: the impact of technology on social communication. In particular it will investigate if technology, paradoxically, is leading to greater rather than less social isolation, and the implications of this for religious communities. The question of the roots of information systems will be the subject of research conducted by Group 3 ( Salford University ). Taking into account the long missionary tradition and focus of its host university, this group will seek to identify the potential of new technologies to support respectful inter-religious dialogue and debate. Group 4 (Warsaw) will concern itself with fundamental questions relating to technology and its implications for human being, and similarly, Group 5 (Glenstal Abbey) will consider whether or not Heidegger's assertion is correct, namely that the human person in the world of global technology is neither inextricable nor inescapable.