The Emergence of Freedom: The Sciences and the Human Spirit After Darwin

The Emergence of Freedom by James A. Barham

Scientism is the reigning belief system of our time. It is the worldview that the natural sciences, as they exist today, give us a complete and sufficient understanding of all of nature, including ourselves. This book has two main aims. The first is to challenge eight key ideas commonly held by supporters of scientism: eternalism in the philosophy of time, physicalist reductionism, (hard) determinism, mechanism in biology, neural reductionism, psychologism, moral relativism, and technocratic statism. The second, and perhaps more important, aim is to provide a new, positive narrative that explains humanity's place in nature in contrast to the dominant scientistic narrative. The key concepts explored throughout the book are emergence, freedom, and spirit. Emergence denotes the universal tendency in nature for increasing quantity to lead to novel qualities. Freedom means nature's broad disposition towards ever-increasing autonomy. Spirit signifies the domain of reality created by human social interaction, language, and rationality.