Beyond Conflict and Reduction

Book excerpt: While much attention has been devoted to the conflicts between religion and science in the modern age, less rarely has sufficient attention been devoted to the complex interplay between religion, science and philosophy. This book offers a set of wide-ranging essays in which the interplay between all these three is the explicit focus of attention. The essays reflect a desire to think of this interplay in terms other than conflict and reduction. The book also represents a pluralism of approaches to reflection on this interplay. Part I represents a more idealistic orientation in which religion, philosophy and science are seen to enjoy a complementarity. Part II formulates the interplay more from the standpoint of process philosophy. Part III explores the issue with primary emphasis on the contributions of science. In Part IV the essays reflect a desire to take the religious on its own terms, and explore the interplay with philosophy and science with the proper seriousness solicited by these terms.