196 - Jean Staune : a multidisciplinary intellectual Christian

Publié le 26 janvier 2009 par marike.over-blog.com

Emplacement provisoire :

En français sur la toile, en anglais ici, car je n'arrive pas à insérer ce texte comme traduction en anglais à Wikipedia où personne, semble-t-il, ne peut m'aider.

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Jean Staune - Wikipédia

13 déc 2008 ... Le cœur de la démarche de Jean Staune repose sur une analyse des implications philosophiques des grandes découvertes scientifiques du XX e ...
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Staune - 42k

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Management consultant, secretary-general of the Interdisciplinary University of Paris (l'Université interdisciplinaire de Paris: UIP), substitute teacher at Commercial French Higher School (HEC : "Hautes Etudes Commerciales"), he has also been invited at the

Pontifical gregorian university of Rome[1] and at the Shandong University in China. His background includes degrees in computing, management and human paleontology
(level : from DEUG to DEA.)[2] His seeking concerning as well science, management, philosophy and religion, he is an original thinker finding himself in the center of several debates and controversies.

Summary

1 Philosophy of the sciences -
2 Management teaching and consulting -
3 Critic of ultra-libéralism
4 bringing closer science and religion
5 Involvement in Christianism
6 dialogue between religions
7 Critic of Darwinism
8 Interdisciplinary University of Paris
9 Books
10 Debates ans controversies
11 Notes

Philosophy of the sciences

The heart of the seeking of Jean Staune stays in an analysis of philosophical involvements of the great scientific discoveries of the XX^th century ( XX^e siècle )( Big Bang theory, quantum physics, Gödel's Theorem, Chaos theory. According to him, such discoveries represent a change of the vision as was the way from Middle Age to Modernity ;thus, they have both together philosophical and metaphysical consequences, but also economical and societal[1].

[1] · ↑ What must we say to men ? ( Que faut-il dire aux hommes ? ) [1] [archive]

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Management teaching and consulting

Following Margaret Wheatley in the United States and Ervin László in Hungary, Jean Staune tried to develop links between science and management, at the same time :

towards the well-known french business : PSA, Thalès, L'Oreal, Auchan, EDF, GDF ;
in organizing conferences bringing together scientifics and managers ;
by his speeches as expert at the association "the progress of management".

he tries to show that the principles of the classical management are traced on those, reductionist mechanistic and determinist, of the classical physics.

Science having showed by itself the limit of the validity of its concepts, therefore organisations must apply new conceptions accepting uncertainty, promoting networks, creativity, individual initiative.Treating management only by the mediation of philosophy of sciences, Jean Staune tries to develop a subject : the philosophy of sciences applied to management.

Critic of ultra-liberalism

Although Jean Staune rejects "altermondialism", as illusory, he critizises ultra-liberalism[4]. He proposes, as an alternative, practices coming from inside capitalism , but enabling to tranform it (the fair trade, the sustainable development , the micro-credit, ethical investment, the ethical notion of firms...)

Bringing closer science and religion

For Jean Staune, scientific discoveries have by themselves philosophical and metaphysical implications, regardless of any theological or religious presupposition. Relying on Bernard d'Espagnat's writings (he postulates for a "non physical realism", as consequences of non physical experiences such as non locality), Trinh Xuan Thuan's (being about the "fine adjustment of the universe" which asks -without any answer- the question of a creative principle), Roger Penrose's (who asserts that human spirit has a direct access to a platonic world of mathematical truths), and Benjamin Libet (on non-identity between neuronal and mental states), Jean Staune affirms that scientific progresses give a new credibility to the non- materialistic views on the world and on mankind, and converge with some insights of all the great traditions, monotheists or not[5]. This conclusion is hotly contested by scientifics and philosophers who affirm that science could not be thought out of a materialistic epistemology (see "Intrusions spiritualistes en sciences and Les matérialistes et leurs détracteurs, under direction of Jean Debussy and Guillaume Lecointre). After having contributed to the grouping of french scientifics interested in the field "Science and religion", Jean Staune has developed his action on this subject beyond our borders towards The Universities of Oxford [6]^[^6], Berkeley, and he became one of the first Frenchmen member of the scientific council of the fondation John Templeton, till december 2006.

Involvement in christianism

Baptised orthodox, Jean Staune converted himself to catholicism[7]. He contributed to the création and to the development of the project « Science Technologie et Quête Ontologique » with the Pontifical Council of Culture and many pontifical universities. He also contributed to the development of the scientific part of the « Projet Nouveau Regard » created by Dom Gérard Lafond, 4th priest of the Benedictine Abbay of Wisques. He also spoke on the subject « Science and faith » for the benedictines communities at the monastery of Ganagobie, Kergonan and "Sainte Marie des 2 montagnes" and "Saint Benoît du Lac" (Canada) and for teenagers beside classes of catchism.

He is a member of the « réseau Blaise Pascal », a group of french-speaking christians interested by this subject.

Dialogue between religions

Avoid the « shock of the civilisations » is for Jean Staune an essential aim, that's why he implicated himself in programs about islam (directed by Bruno Guiderdoni, astrophysician at the CNRS) and orthodoxy (directed by Basarab Nicolescu, a physician at CNRS, and Magda Stavinschi, Astronome), his collaboration with the romanian orthodox church or muslim sites as oumma.com. Actually, his action is broading to hinduism and taoism by several lectures in India and China.

Critic of Darwinism

Jean Staune, proclaiming himself the heir of a french tradition of scepticism about the possibility of explanation of the Evolution of life only by darwinian mechanisms (Evolution initiated among others by the zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé), Jean Staune argues, in writing and lectures, for alternativ theories to darwinism[8], inspired from a teleological or finalist vision, sometimes near of the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin, of the zoologist Remy Chauvin or of the mathematician and geneticist Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, to whom he was close.

The theories of Evolution he popularizes reject together the darwinian idea of the adaptation to environment by the way of natural selection as principal mechanism of Evolution. He, in particular, upholds the work of the paleontologist Anne Dambricourt-Malassé (La Légende Maudite du Vingtième Siècle: L'Erreur darwinienne, "Homo sapiens - une nouvelle histoire de l'homme"), and of biologists Rosine Chandebois (Pour en finir avec le Darwinisme, une nouvelle logique du vivant), and Michael Denton (L'Évolution a-t-elle un Sens?). This militancy against darwinism has brought to him several critics coming from advocates of darwinism (Evolution) or of the scientific materialism.

In january 2006, several articles in the special number of the news paper le Nouvel Observateur called La Bible contre Darwin have related about Jean Staune's work, describing it as a french version of the intelligent design , a theory which is very well known in the United States. On this subject his position was thus describes as a derive from

"creationnism" in France. This subject has too been developed in an article[9] of the journal Le Monde to which he has answered[10], asserting that he "upholds with the greatest strength the theory of Evolution (the fact that all beings have a common ancestor) and that he denounces creationnism (the idea according to which beings should have been created separately) in all his speeches and writings on the subject."

In fact, for some defenders of darwinian Evolution, such as in the magazine Science et Vie, the intelligent design is only disguised creationnism, The difference between creationnism and Evolution is recognizing chance as the responsible of the apparition of species, and the magazine considers Jean Staune as a neo-creationnist just because he accepts the idea of Evolution guided. He refuses to exclude references to God, as hypothesis in his thought on biological Evolution and he accuses of ideology those who insist on this dividing line opposing himself to the Non-Overlapping Magisteria ( Non-recouvrement des magistères )[11].

Interdisciplinary University of Paris

Jean Staune is one of the two founders and secretary-general of the interdisciplinary University of Paris ( Université interdisciplinaire de Paris ), which, in spite of its name, isn't an university but an « association loi de 1901 » organizing conferences on different scientific subjects and others.

Books

Jean Staune, Notre existence a-t-elle un sens ? Une enquête scientifique et philosophique, Presse de la Renaissance, 2007
Jean Staune (dir.), Science et quête de sens, Presse de la Renaissance, 2005

Texts of Christian de Duve, Trinh Xuan Thuan, Bernard d'Espagnat, Charles Townes, Ahmed Zewail, William Phillips, Jean Kovalevsky and others.

Jean Staune (dir.), L'Homme face à la science, Criterion, 1992

Texts of Hubert Reeves, Ilya Prigogine, René Lenoir, Jacques Arsac and others.

Debates and controversies

André Comte-Sponville - Jean Staune : is science going to refute atheism ? [archive]
About the book : « Notre existence a-t-elle un sens ? » a philosophical and scientific inquiry [archive]
Guillaume Lecointre, once more aimed at by the UIP, answers to these accusations archive]
Interdisciplinary University of Paris [archive]
The crusade of UIP against materialism [archive]