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    Astonishment and Science: Engagements with William Desmond
    Astonishment and Science: Engagements with William Desmond
    Astonishment and Science: Engagements with William Desmond
    Ebook501 pages6 hours

    Astonishment and Science: Engagements with William Desmond

    By Paul Tyson

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    Science can reveal or conceal the breathtaking wonders of creation. On one hand, knowledge of the natural world can open us up to greater love for the Creator, give us the means of more neighborly care, and fill us with ever-deepening astonishment. On the other hand, knowledge feeding an insatiable hunger for epistemic mastery can become a means of idolatry, hubris, and damage. Crucial to world-respecting science is the role of wonder: curiosity, perplexity, and astonishment. In this volume, philosopher William Desmond explores the relation of the different modes of wonder to modern science. Responding to his thought are twelve thinkers across the domains of science, theology, philosophy, law, poetry, medicine, sociology, and art restoration.

    Introduction
    --Paul Tyson

    The Dearth of Astonishment: On Curiosity, Scientism, and Thinking as Negativity
    --William Desmond

    Preparing to Paint the Virgin's Robe
    --Spike Bucklow

    Cultivating Wonder
    --Steven Knepper

    The Astonishment of Philosophy: William Desmond and Isabelle Stengers
    --Simone Kotva

    Astonishment and the Social Sciences
    --Paul Tyson

    Curiosity, Perplexity, and Astonishment in the Natural Sciences
    --Andrew Davison

    Scientism as the Dearth of the Nothing
    --Richard J. Colledge

    The Determinations of Medicine and the Too-Muchness of Being
    --Jeffrey Bishop

    Attending to Infinitude: Law as in-between the Overdeterminate and Practical Judgment
    --Jonathan Horton

    Life's Wonder
    --Simon Oliver

    Being in Control
    --Michael Hanby

    Wondering about the Science/Scientism Distinction
    --D. C. Schindler

    Basil and Desmond on Wonder and the Astonishing Return of Christian Metaphysics

    --Isidoros C. Katsos

    The Children of Wonder: On Scientism and Its Changelings
    --William Desmond
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCascade Books
    Release dateDec 27, 2022
    ISBN9781666728071
    Astonishment and Science: Engagements with William Desmond

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      Astonishment and Science - Paul Tyson

      Introduction

      Paul Tyson

      Science is the natural philosophy of Western modernity.

      ¹

      As a natural philosophy, modern science has gradually come to perform important cultural functions that used to be done by theology and metaphysics. By now—in our broadly materialist and secular public-knowledge environment—our shared tacit cultural understandings of the nature of reality, the meaning of our own humanity, and the contours of cosmic purpose and moral truth (usually understood in terms of their convenient absence), are deeply shaped by our natural philosophy. In a rather historically unique manner, our natural philosophy now firmly molds what sociologists of knowledge call our social reality, to the exclusion of traditional metaphysics and theology from the domain of public knowledge.

      ²

      In this context, thinking about where and how science has become a theology and metaphysics excluding public-domain ideology—scientism—is an important concern for anyone still interested in traditional metaphysics and theology.

      But perhaps I am speaking in too shrill a manner. Many Christians and people of other faiths who are scientists have found the nineteenth-century separation of science from religion quite serviceable. Science tells us the what of observable reality, religion (and perhaps metaphysics) tell us the why. The modern world holds that facts and quantities are entirely different knowledge and understanding (belief?) categories to meanings and qualities; there is no inherent reason why they should clash. Provided science keeps to the factual and theoretical domain of what and faith and philosophy keep to the meaning and value domain of why, the territorial arrangement can be, and should be, mutually constructive.

      The nature of the relationships between the practices and knowledge-constructions of modern science, the revelations and community-formations of religion, the contemplations of metaphysical explorations, and the distinctive configuration of the modern categories of public knowledge and private meaning are genuinely complex. Such a dynamic and multi-faceted matrix requires a high degree of intellectual finesse across a complex field of intersecting modalities of knowledge, understanding, belief, and power to do it justice. Few thinkers in our times of high specialization have really got what it takes to perform such an endeavor well. But there is a very capable thinker, a truly able metaphysical theologian, who we can call on to help us in this very important matter: William Desmond.

      ◆◆◆

      William Desmond has a distinctive voice. Some hear that voice as clear as a bell and as piercing as truth. Others simply cannot follow the meaning his seemingly mysterious words convey.

      In preparing this book, I was discussing with D. C. Schindler

      ³

      the striking manner in which some people get William, and others do not. D. C. Schindler, like myself, finds it hard to understand how anyone might not be moved to lyricism by the beautiful clarity and profound insights of this astonishing bard of metaphysical theology. We were trying to work out what the problem might be, for we both know some super-intelligent and profound thinkers who—one might say—are tone deaf to William’s songs. We thought perhaps the problem has something to do with a key concept in William’s thought—the in between.

      When a knowing subject—a thinking, feeling, perceiving person—interacts with another person or thing, the magic happens in between the knower and the known. Among other things, the subject is revealed to themselves in knowing the object, and the object likewise is engaged and changed by being known. When two personal beings know each other, the space in between them, where they meet, is where the Spirit moves. Life happens between beings. And it cannot be bottled. What is most important about both the knower and the known is beyond capture within either of them. So one has to be able to play outside of the (impossible) subjective certainties of total knowledge capture within us as knowers, and outside of the (impossible) mastery of the outer world—the world of beings as objects of knowledge—to follow William’s songs of thought. But this goes against the grain of how we are trained in knowledge-mastery and instrumental knowledge-construction. And perhaps those who are most advanced among us in the training of our knowledge culture are most troubled by William’s songs. For his songs are always in the key of love, rather than the key of mastery. This does not mean William is less than expert concerning what can be said about knowers and the known, but clarity on that front is the leaping-off point into the un-masterable joy of what is really important—the in between, the playground of the Spirit. One might say William has a pneumatological metaphysics of the natural world, but our knowledge culture is increasingly (mis-)constructed by a functionally materialist metaphysics of the (counterfeit) spiritual world. Hence, communication difficulties between William and our dominant knowledge-culture are entirely to be expected. And that will happen most strikingly when we come to talk about modern science.

      ◆◆◆

      Part One of this book is a chapter from one of William’s books, reproduced here with the kind permission of the original publisher.

      ⁴

      The chapter is titled The Dearth of Astonishment: On Curiosity, Scientism, and Thinking as Negativity.

      ⁵

      William’s chapter can be read on its own as an exploration of the troubled relationship between modern science and what he identifies as the three modalities of wonder: astonishment, perplexity, and curiosity. For anyone interested in the nature of modern science and its distinctive relationship with one mode of wonder (curiosity), and the particular ways in which modern science often seems to fail to relate in a satisfactory manner to other modes of wonder (perplexity and astonishment), this is a very helpful and important read. For the distinctive signatures of scientism that arise from its functionally and materially focused curiosity, and the manner in which a scientistic knowledge of the real world of functional material operations becomes isolated from wisdom, which is metaphysically and theologically open to the higher modalities of wonder, is integral with the distinctive forms of spiritual poverty native to knowledge, power, and meaning in the life-world in which we now live.

      William reminds us that astonishment is an open, in between, Spirit-blown experience, marked by a complex relation to that which exceeds the grasp of modern scientific knowledge, and that a meaningful understanding of science itself cannot be produced from within the determinate and instrumentally masterable categories of modern scientific curiosity. This is a difficult message to hear if we are experts in any of the domains of modern determinate knowledge where reduction, specialization, quantifiable demonstration, and the sifting and discarding of the unknowable from the knowable are integral to our approach to publicly valid truth claims. Yet, to all the thinkers engaging with William’s essay in this volume, the licence to include the modalities of astonishment and perplexity in how we approach public truth and the realm of factual and instrumental knowledge is nothing short of an intellectual and spiritual liberation.

      ◆◆◆

      Part Two of this book is a collection of engagements with William’s very important chapter on the three modalities of wonder. As mentioned, the contributors to Part Two have all found William’s thoughts on astonishment and science very helpful. But this is a very challenging arena because the openness of metaphysical theology and the defined and contained knowledge of modern science do not often get in the same room, let alone try and speak to each other. So it seems that the people most needing to hear what William has to contribute—scientists, and people who think of themselves as comfortably at home in a science-defined life-world—might be less naturally able to hear him than the people who normally read and enjoy William’s work.

      One key aim of this book is to build a bridge to William’s chapter for people whose world is deeply shaped by modern science, who we think would be drawn to William’s insights if they could just understand enough of the dialect and tonality of his song for it to make sense to them. The way we have approached this is to collect a range of thinkers to write short pieces on either how astonishment engages their own world of thought, understanding, and practise, or to write pieces that engage directly with William’s chapter. These chapters are wonderful works of insight in their own right, but they are not—per impossibile—written in William’s voice. Sticking with a musical metaphor, these engagements play variations on William’s astonishment-and-science theme in different idioms and ensembles to William’s orchestral suite, which might help tune the ear to his thinking. So whilst the first section of this book opens with William’s essay, if you find it initially hard to follow, perhaps move to Part Two first, reading engagements with William’s work, and then go back to William’s opening chapter. The way in which different aspects of William’s insights are taken up by different engagements with his chapter, allows for more ways into William’s thought world, at least one of which is likely to connect well with any reader.

      A further aim of this book is scholarly engagement with William’s work, in the more traditional register. So there will be some questioning, some application in areas not directly addressed by William, and some hard-headed analysis of his argument. William responds to all contributors’ engagements in Part Three of this book.

      ◆◆◆

      Here is a short introduction to each of the twelve engagements with William’s opening essay:

      Chapter 2 is by Spike Bucklow. Spike’s PhD is in chemistry and he works in Cambridge in art preservation and restoration. This job puts him in the zone of modern material sciences, requires an intimate knowledge of old craft practices, and draws on Spike’s empathetic understanding of the (usually religious) objects of higher meaning that medieval art and its material engagements with the natural world opens up. Unsurprisingly, Spike has a deep understanding of the worldview and craft practices of the Middle Ages. This is a sympathetic cosmos were the natural elements have agency, where craft gilds foster contemplative manual disciples to learn the manners of our tacit understandings and co-agent relationships with the material world, and where nature itself is a sacrament. What we now call science was unknown in the Middle Ages, in large measure because natural knowledge was embedded in an astonishing openness to the metaphysical and the theological in the natural. Familiarity with this world gives Spike a remarkable perspective—by way of contrast—on the way we now think about science. His chapter is a delight to read as he unpacks the surprising intimacy and richness of old craft skills and their relation to higher meanings and the natural world, both in the pre-modern world he preserves as a job, and in his own practice of modern science in doing that preserving.

      In the third chapter, Steven Knepper opens up astonishment in a very direct and beautiful manner, via childhood. Steve is by nature first and foremost, a poet. The world strikes his being powerfully and he responds, richly, in carefully built words, ones bearing openness to the astonishment of being itself. Drawing on the dazzling spiritual luminosity of a father’s relation with his young child, Steve also probes his own childhood experiences of astonishment in the natural world. He relates this back to William’s chapter in a most helpful way. This is a pearl of careful and insightful writing.

      Simone Kotva’s contribution in chapter 4 richly engages the work of William Desmond with another famous Belgian thinker, Isabelle Stengers. Stengers is one of the premier continental philosophers of science in our day, and she comes to that field from chemistry, eco-feminism, and what Simone insightfully describes as mystico-pragmatism. Following on from Steven Knepper’s interest in how a child responds to astonishment, Simone unpacks the hesitance of the child as expounded in Stenger’s slow science and relates this back to Desmond’s thinking. Lingering with astonishment, and being open—quietly, patiently, receptively—to the marvel of the real, allows the world around us to speak its own language. The way modern science too often rushes headlong to master and control reality speaks not of wonder, but of its overcoming via the will to epistemic mastery. In critiquing this will to mastery, Desmond’s philosophical theology and Stengers’ not-theological philosophy of science connect with each other in very fruitful ways. Simone’s chapter convincingly draws on Simone Weil’s insights in order to connect Stengers’ philosophy of science with Desmond’s theological metaphysics. This is a theoretically demanding chapter—not surprisingly, as Simone is one high powered thinker—but those with an interest in the philosophy of science will find it most rewarding.

      My own contribution to this volume, in chapter 5, looks at how a Desmondean outlook on astonishment shapes my approach to the social sciences. As a sociologist I appreciate that having a scientific approach to understanding certain measurable and seemingly mechanical aspects of human societies can be illuminating, provided one bears in mind what such an approach can and cannot achieve. Too often, however, the way in which we unwittingly make false assumptions about what science itself is, involves failing to see what our social scientific perspectives cannot disclose. For this reason, trying to re-think what a social scientific perspective is, from the grounds of metaphysical theology, would produce a better (and perhaps profoundly different) sort of social science. For what it means to be human, and what it means for humans to live in communities, are astonishing and darkly luminous mysteries. If our metaphysics of human reality is inadequate, our social scientific data and theories about the functions, practices, meanings, and measurable signatures of human life will be inadequate. This chapter, then, is an attempt to apply William’s theorizing about astonishment to the social sciences.

      Andrew Davison, who writes chapter 6, is one of those rare and remarkable dual citizen types with PhDs in both biochemistry and theology. In responding to William’s chapter, Andrew explores the question of whether modern scientific curiosity is only dangerous, or whether it has a good side as well. This is much the same question as to whether science can be validly separated from scientism or not (a point of discussion that arises in a number of chapters in this volume). By interfacing the sociologist T. S. Kuhn with William’s chapter, Andrew argues that William allows for a valid role for modern curiosity (and hence modern science) at the same time that Kuhn needs Desmond’s metaphysics to allow science to at least aspire to some form of genuine realism. This is a beautiful and intriguing chapter, very clearly argued, and it draws on Andrew’s inside knowledge of the community of practice that is the context in which modern science is actually done.

      Chapter 7 is by Richard Colledge, a philosopher of rare type and ability. His chapter beautifully unpacks the manner in which William’s chapter draws on and engages with Heidegger, as regards the relationship of science and technology to wonder and being. This chapter also helps explain—incidentally—why William is often met with perplexity in the Anglo-American scene; English language philosophy is often a discourse of thought that really does not understand a lot of what is going on in continental thought, even though we also live under the shadow of Kant and Hegel. Richard’s chapter is very helpful in showing Anglophone thinking that William is not simply making up his own terms and metaphysical categories, but is engaged in the world of thought that is (to be frank) more metaphysically and theologically advanced than the often explicitly linguistically and scientistically reductive landscape of Anglophone philosophy. In philosophy, the continentals have been less metaphysically closed down by the marvels of the modern scientific age than have the Anglophones, and part of William’s problem is that he is a continental theological metaphysician writing (often) in English.

      Chapter 8 is by Jeff Bishop, who is an ethicist, philosopher, theologian, and medical doctor. This is an absorbing chapter. If you want to know what a concrete application of William’s understanding of the various modalities of wonder are, this chapter will give it to you. Most professions—such as medicine and law—deal in the domain of determinate knowledge. That is, the body of knowledge that is medical science, and the body of knowledge that is legal interpretation, must be—to some extent—mastered, by the proficient doctor or lawyer. But, perhaps unlike for the pure scientist who is simply trying to crack open one specific door at the edge of present knowledge, the doctor and the lawyer must always relate their knowledge to profound mysteries that transcend our determinate knowledge; the living reality of the patient and the nature of justice. Doctors and lawyers can, of course, fail to relate their determinate knowledge appropriately to the mysteries that are inextricable from the practice of medicine and law. Yet excellent doctors and lawyers are those who develop a skilled proficiency in the complex art of marrying the determinate knowledge mastery and technical skills of their profession with an astonished reverence for the people and transcendent horizons that they serve. Jeff unpacks his own journey on that maturing to show us that the tendency for science to move from astonishment to perplexity to curiosity and to mastered knowledge goes in the reverse direction for the practice of medicine. This is a very helpful chapter for anyone working in a field of determinate knowledge that is unavoidably connected to astonishing mysteries. There is, it seems, nothing more practical, knowledge-embedded, and concretely grounded than having a workable metaphysical perspective on the relation of astonishment to the small and intricately beautiful worlds of human knowledge that we construct.

      A note in preparation regarding Jeff’s chapter. Medicine is a practice intimately concerned with three taboos as regards the myth of normality in our increasingly materialist and reflexively triumphant culture; illness, trauma, and death. To speak from within Christian theology, the practice of medicine is a ministry of solidarity with the afflicted, of healing aid, and of consolation in the face of death; it is a Christian practice. Any practice of this nature confronts our mortal vulnerabilities and flux-embedded contingencies, and leads us to the edge of being and to astonishment at the terrifying indeterminacy from where people come and to where they go. Be prepared for a deep and unsettling look at how astonishment and our mortal being interact under the conditions of ministry to the ill, the traumatized, and the dying.

      Chapter 9 is by a senior barrister who has a doctorate in legal metaphysics as it relates to the problem of parliamentary hyperactivity. That is, in his doctoral studies Jonathan Horton explored the question of why it is that English and Australian parliaments now make so many new laws all the time. In a similar manner to how Jeff has outlined the implications of William’s work for the practice of medicine, Jonathan outlines how an appreciation of the indeterminate high aim of law—justice—relates to the mastery of determinate interpretations of legal precedent. What is striking about this chapter is that none of what Jonathan says is in any sense original, or in any sense unappreciated, but is basic jurisprudence to all the great legal minds of the Western tradition of law and justice, excepting those in our own times. To us, however, Jonathan’s chapter is profoundly startling. We seem to have forgotten that the making of a judgement is a sacrament, a very this-worldly, tangible, and particular thing that participates in a divine reality that can never be captured by human art or determinate power. Jonathan points out that the habits, rituals, and customs of law in the English tradition still move in accordance with this tacitly sacramental experience of law and judgement, even though the minds of most of our politicians in the creation of new laws, and even many of our lawyers and judges in the interpretation of law, seem entirely unaware of the metaphysical and theological horizon to law. This, Jonathan describes, is the intellectual impact of legal scientism. It is the overcoming of the indeterminate by the determinate. This is a very fine chapter outlining just how concretely and politically vital a respectful metaphysical openness to indeterminable divine gifts is, in our actual lives.

      Chapter 10, by Simon Oliver, is an insightful reflection that concerns itself with the manner in which modern science is an inherently technological affair. Looking at how the final cause (that is, purpose) of nature itself was re-directed in the seventeenth century from the glory of God to human utility by the founders of modern science, Simon wonders if pre-modern categories of astonishment are even possible from within a modern scientific perspective. Simon unpacks these historical considerations with the aid of some heavy hitters in this scholarly domain—Hans Jonas, William Eamon, Jessica Riskin—and relates them back to William’s chapter, with a focus on that most astonishing aspect of our experience of reality, life. It is a beautiful piece of scholarship that will be of real interest to historians of modern science interested in William’s insights into astonishment.

      Michael Hanby, in chapter 11, and in the spirit of love and admiration, critiques the way William’s chapter seems to allow for the possibility of a meaningful distinction between science and scientism (as is unpacked and defended by Andrew Davison in chapter 5). I must say, when I read Michael’s chapter I was delighted, for I thought William will love the metaphysically referenced concept-testing nature of this piece, and William’s response will be fascinating. I won’t say much more about the argument here, other than that Michael Hanby is one of the most serious English language thinkers writing today whose first concern is the intimate matrix of relationships between metaphysics, theology, and modern science. Michael’s argument here follows on neatly from Simon’s chapter and these first-order questions about the nature and meaning of modern science are, in my opinion, of great interest to anyone who wants to have a theologically credible understanding of the modern scientific age.

      It is worth noting one aspect of the apparent tension between Michael’s stance and Andrew Davison’s stance. Michael’s argument can be read negatively (i.e., as denying the legitimacy of the distinction between science and scientism) or positively (i.e. as arguing that science requires a fuller metaphysical grounding than it presently has—theoretically at least—in order to be more richly and properly scientific). Michael’s intentions in making his (negative) critique of the science/scientism distinction are positive (arguing for a better theory and practice of science) so he does not see himself as opposed to science. Indeed, Michael rather sees that the practice of science is where the metaphysical richness of creation cannot actually be avoided, even if a theoretical outlook that is characterized by reductive empiricism, instrumental rationalism, and a hubris-prone curiosity is unavoidably normative to the way we reflexively approach knowledge itself in our modern, secular, and scientific times. That is, although Michael seems to be arguing in the opposite direction to how Andrew is arguing, whether Michael’s concerns actually present a sharp incompatibility with what Andrew is arguing for is not a simple or obvious matter. To explore this demanding matter properly we need a very nuanced and capable thinker. If it is the case that Michael and Andrew can be harmonized in the truth, in a manner that satisfies key features of both arguments, then William is the champion we should call on to see if that aim can be realized.

      The twelfth chapter by D. C. Schindler works over the same themes that have been explored by Simon and Michael. The un-nuanced manner in which curiosity has been valorized in modern science, rejecting older cautions and misgivings about curiosity, is a significant component of William’s chapter, and this is the theme taken up by D. C. Schindler. The ties between curiosity and the modern scientific interest in knowledge as power require serious attention. For this is not a cosmologically neutral matter. At stake is the question of whether power or love is the first principle of creation. If reality is in fact a function of divine donation, of the gift of Agape, then the full texture of the real cannot actually be known in the instrumental modality of modern curiosity; what the technologist is knowing is our own artificial power. So it is Schindler’s interest in the metaphysics of the real that motivates his caution towards the mastery epistemology of modern scientific curiosity. If Schindler’s concerns are valid, then we will need to re-think what we mean by science itself, if we want to know something at least analogically true about the real. Schindler believes William supports such a radical re-think of modern science, but what does William think about this understanding of his view?

      The final chapter in part one of this book—chapter 13—is by the Orthodox priest, theologian, and scholar Isidoros Katsos. Father Isidoros exemplifies, to me, the Orthodox manner in which worship and prayer are the grounds of thinking and engagement with others and the world. Isidoros brings out the manner in which William’s work resonates, in joyous richness, with the Orthodox iconological understanding of the world and our relation to the world. Creation is shot through with the glory of God, and we are riven with astonishment whenever we are touched by a partial awareness of what creation really is. Any real awareness of reality requires a metaphysical appreciation of that which is the grounds of the real, of God. And it is this metaphysical awareness of the unmasterable glory, which is the mark and presence of God in, beneath, and beyond all creation, that saves us from the spiritual temptations of reductively determinate knowledge. To both Isidoros and William, science has its rightful place only when its determinate categories are held as non-ultimate, and subordinated to worship. This right appreciation of determinate knowledge is lost without a properly doxological humility and joy. Only ortho-doxology can save science from being a spiritual trap, a fall into the relentless hubris of a restless ontological unreality. The finite and the temporal rests between the infinity of Nothing and the beyond-infinity of God’s eternal Being, and our minds will always be restless until they rest in the metaxu (the between) of where God has placed us and astonishingly meets us. Accepting this doxological rest is what it means to embrace being a creature. Curiosity is only spiritually safe—and joyfully limited—to the worshiping mind. This is a profound and astonishing chapter.

      ◆◆◆

      Part Three of this book is William’s response to the engagements that our twelve interlocutors provide. This is a treat. Weaving the fabrics of all responses together, we see further into aspects of each response, and gain further illumination on the original chapter. Via this passage new light is shed on the mystery of astonishment, and in that light we start to dimly see what better relations between the different modes of knowledge and wisdom could look like. This final chapter is incredibly helpful as we wrestle to think about how to best respond to the challenge of scientism and the value of good natural philosophy. This chapter helps us move towards a richer way of trying to think about and practice natural knowledge and the light of revelation and wisdom in ways that are more adequate to the mystery and wonder of the real.

      Bibliography

      Desmond, William. The Voiding of Being. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press,

      2020

      .

      Harrison, Peter. The Territories of Science and Religion. Chicago: Chicago University Press,

      2015

      .

      1

      . Technically, it is more philosophically accurate to say that the methods, broadly accepted facts and theories, and the epistemic habits, technological uses, and institutional authority of modern science cannot be meaningfully extracted from the assumed natural philosophy of Western modernity. So technically, modern science (as a multi-faceted body of knowledge and a set of knowledge-concerned practices) can be held as conceptually distinct from modernity’s assumed natural philosophy (broadly shared beliefs about the nature and meaning of nature). Sociologically, however, our distinctly modern understanding of scientific truth is so intimately entailed in the way we collectively see nature, supernature, humanity, and the realms of public facts, private beliefs, instrumental power, and realistic action that their technical distinction looks pretty academic in reality. In terms of what sociologists of knowledge call our social reality, science really is our natural philosophy.

      2

      . See Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion for a careful look at the manner in which there was a historical tipping point in the late nineteenth century when the territories of science and religion were firmly demarcated, with the public domain of knowledge given over to science, and personal domains of meaning and faith given over to religion.

      3

      . I would ordinarily refer to D. C. Schindler as David, excepting he often finds people confuse him with his famous theologian father, David L. Schindler. So, in this introduction, the younger David Schindler is referred as D. C. Schindler.

      4

      . Many thanks to the Catholic University of America Press.

      5

      . This is chapter

      3

      in Desmond, The Voiding of Being,

      96

      –

      125 [15–42]

      .

      Part One

      1

      The Dearth of Astonishment

      On Curiosity, Scientism, and Thinking as Negativity

      William Desmond

      Curiosity and Scientism

      What looks like an insatiable curiosity seems to drive the scientific enterprise. In principle no question seems barred to that curiosity. There seems something limitless to it. Are there recessed equivocities in this drive of limitless curiosity? How does one connect this question with the issue of scientism? Do these equivocities have anything to do with the possibilities of misunderstanding the limitlessness of our desire to know? Are there temptations in curiosity itself to misform the potential infinitude of that desire to know? Is it possible for certain configurations of curiosity to produce counterfeit doubles of wonder? Has the scientistic impulse something to do with the temptation to this malformation? Has this something to do with how the infinity of our desire to know turns away from the true infinite—turns itself into the truth of the infinite?

      Scientism bears on the place of science in the life of the whole from which there is no way to abstract science entirely. In the main, scientism understands science to be capable, in principle, if not in practice, of answering all the essential perplexities about the world and the human condition. I want to reflect on the temptation to contract the meaning of wonder in the scientistic interpretation of scientific curiosity. I will ask if this contraction of wonder paradoxically can be tempted with a limitless self-expansion out of which a kind of idolatrous knowing can come. I want to explore a connection with the determinateness or determinability of being, a connection present also in the idea of thinking as negativity. I want to explore a dearth of ontological astonishment in all of this.

      We need to distinguish different modalities of wonder: wonder in the modalities of astonishment, perplexity, and curiosity. Curiosity tends to be oriented to what is determinate or determinable, perplexity to something more indeterminate, astonishment to what is overdeterminate, as exceeding univocal determination. The determinate and determinable curiosity of science, while capable of showing a face of unlimitedness, is not to be equated with the fullness of wonder. Throughout my reflection, the intimate relation of determination and self-determination will be of importance: there is a configuration of wonder overtly tilted to determination but which, more intimately, is ingredient in a project of self-determination that wants to bring itself to full completion. I am interested in asking if our curiosity, under scientistic influences, can come to communicate idolatrous outcomes. There is a religious issue here of how, in the name of high ideals, we secrete counterfeit doubles of God. The open infinitude of our seeking might be taken to reflect our capax dei,⁶ but there is a difference between a capacity for the divine, a capacity that finds in itself something divine, and a capacity that wills itself to be (the) divine. I am interested in asking if the

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