Research Project Grants

Atheism and Religiosity among Argentine Scientists

This project will measure the levels of religious belief and spirituality among Argentine scientists of six disciplines. This aims to be the beginning of a longer-term plan: a comparative study of the levels of atheism in Latin and Anglo-Saxon scientists. The study will be developed and carried out by an interdisciplinary team based at the University of Cordoba and Oakland University. The developmental difference between the Anglo-Saxon and Latin American world is attributable in part to differences between Protestant and Catholic culture. In turn, the science-religion conflict is higher in the Protestant than in the Catholic world. We will offer a new understanding of this difference through an assessment of the degree (on an ordinal scale that registers levels of the measure) of spirituality and religiosity among Argentine scientists.

Grant: US$28,000

Dates: January 2016 – June 2017

A Cartography of Pain: Interdisciplinary Outlooks on homo dolens

The Project will analyze the formation and transformations of the religious ‘I’ through the multiple experiences of pain (corporal, emotional, spiritual) that model homo dolens. The Project will thus develop an interdisciplinary cartography of pain so that distinct and specific focal elements vis-à-vis pain may be identified regarding the formation of the religious ‘I’ and the modification of the human. This method necessarily involves an empirical dimension that presupposes gathering pieces of evidence. The object of this cartography, homo dolens, is constructed on the basis of singular experiences of pain; such experiences are transmitted and conserved in different (neuronal, psychological, religious, philosophical and historical) ‘sites.’ The will to know the causes of suffering, the self-consciousness of our own limits, the search towards the meaning of our pain and the human condition, all establish aspects that will be studied as regions of the territory that composes this research. All of these elements express facets in the construction and transcendence of the ‘I.’ Philosophical and theological conceptualizations allow to establish an active association with other disciplines, such as biology, anthropology and history. This interdisciplinary relationship helps to conceive the experience of pain—and its relation to transcendence and sense of limit, considered as the very expression of the human condition—via the crafting of a cartography of pain.

Grant: US$20,750

Dates: May 2016 – May 2017

Biology teachers’ conceptions of three Latin American countries about human’s place in nature and the human mind

What is the place of human beings in the animal kingdom? How teachers conceive the human mind? The project intends to answer these questions in secondary education, in which biology teachers discuss the human’s place its origin and evolution, as well as discuss the physiology and anatomy of the human brain. It is believed that the teacher’s vision can impact their students’ conceptions regarding these questions and their religiosity. It is intended to use questions from the European questionnaire, used in various continents, to portray the concepts of biology teachers. Questions about the origin of humans, God’s role in this process and human’s place in the evolutionary process and questions about the human mind will be analysed. Furthermore, interviews will be conducted seeking to validate and discuss the results of the questionnaire. The research subjects are the teachers of three Latin American countries with contrast between church and state: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

Grant: US$14,748

Dates: January 2016 – December 2016

Website: http://projetocre.uniformg.edu.br/

The Science of the “End of the World”: Natural Threats to the Development of Life

La preocupación sobre el “fin del mundo”, un final catastrófico para la vida en la Tierra, esta presente en hombres y mujeres de todas las civilizaciones. Esto se refleja en las referencias que se hacen sobre este fenómeno en diversas culturas y religiones . Las estudios científicos de las últimas décadas han permitido conocer algunas de las amenazas reales, y su efecto pasado y futuro en el desarrollo de la vida en nuestro planeta. En este estudio no se abordarán los factores antrópicos que pueden llevar a la extinción de la Humanidad o de la vida. Nos centraremos en analizar comparativamente las amenazas naturales que pueden llevar a una nueva extinción y las acciones que viene desarrollando la Humanidad para su prevención. Comenzaremos analizando la presencia de las ideas catastrofistas o apocalípticas en diversas culturas y religiones. Culminaremos el estudio debatiendo las perspectivas futuras de la vida en la Tierra. El producto final será un libro y un seminario sobre el tema.

Grant: US$30,000

Dates: March 2016 – March 2017

Journal Quaerentibus – Digital and Outreach support

Quaerentibus is a free open-access electronic academic journal devoted to the promotion of intellectual dialogue between theology and sciences, and intended to reach Romance languages countries and cultures. It was launched in 2012, and 5 numbers have already been issued. It is one of the relatively limited resources in our languages for engaging our academic communities and general public. Particularly, it is one of the few journals for promoting academic research on this field in Latin America. Nevertheless, the improvement of the journal’s digital framework, and the necessity of effectively reaching major centres of research, through publicity and communications, and achieving a more interactive platform with writers and readers, lead us to redefine this project, on the basis of new technology and logistics. Especially, we aim at a more active international interchange among our interdisciplinary communities, to contribute to a sustainable network on the subject.

Grant: US$15,000

Dates: January 2016 – January 2017

Website: http://www.quaerentibus.org/

Social Construction and the Created Character of Human Beings

This project aims at contributing to the dialogue between Christian thought and contemporary social sciences by means of an examination of the possibilities of mutual enhancement between the belief in the created character of human beings and the interpretation of human persons proper of the socio-constructivist approach. In particular, the idea of human nature, highly contested by constructivists, will be examined in the light of both the emphasis on historicity and contingency characteristic of current social sciences and of theological anthropology. We expect that a contemporary interpretation of the created character of human beings can take elements from socio-constructivism at the same time that it will set limits and confer certain direction and purpose to the process of social construction. Besides the production of original scholarship, the project aims at educating new scholars and strengthening the work of our inter-university science and religion research group.

Grant: US$14,854

Dates: March 2016 – March 2017

Human Life and its Place in the Cosmos in the Neo-Materialist Worldview

This project aims to study the philosophical conceptualization of human life in eco-materialism. It will examine the ontology within eco-materialism: the definitions of life, matter- both organic and inorganic-, its mutual interconnections; and thus, what the position of human life in cosmos is. This research of a hermeneutic character will inquire into certain key texts from this humanist-environmentalist approach through a critical and interactive interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, theology, biology, the social sciences, and the humanities (ecocriticism and literature). Furthermore, it will analyse the compatibility of this perspective with that of the Ecclesiastical Magisterium about the special dignity of the person in cosmos, Laudato Si. Finally, the research will establish the argumentative potential of these new eco-materialist theories as a foundation for a new ethical and political normative order that regulates the relationship between the human and other beings.

Grant: US$15,000

Dates: April 2016 – April 2017

Website: http://neomaterialismo.wix.com/neomaterialismo

An Epistemological Analysis of the Science-and-Religion Dialogue

This project will analyse the fact that the vast majority of the parties involved in the science-and-religion dialogue have either ignored the debate surrounding the issue of scientific realism in the philosophy of science, or have uncritically assumed a position about it. Our goals are, first, to show the textual evidence within scientific and theological sources within the science-and-religion dialogue; second, to show the relevance of the scientific realism debate to this dialogue; and third to assume a position about the perspectives taken about this debate in the dialogue under study.

Grant: US$15,000

Dates: February 2016 – December 2016

Mind-brain debate in contemporary psychiatry

Different views on mind-brain problem (MBP), especially if mind is a brain product or something that transcends the brain, has marked implications for clinical practice and for the understanding of spirituality and human nature. The present project engages a wide range of disciplines (psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and history of science) in order to: 1) increase interest and awareness by general and academic audiences on the state of art of academic discussions on MBP; 2) stimulate new and well informed studies; 3) encourage networking and the establishment of new research groups of MBP. This project has seven components: 1) Research: Mind-brain problem in psychiatry journals; 2) Two international Mind-Brain Conferences: Does the Brain Produce the Mind?; 3) Award: “The mind-brain debate and its controversies”; 4) Project’s website; 5) Web Videos on MBP; 6) Project’s Fan Page on Facebook and 7) Special issue on MBP at the journal “Archives of Clinical Psychiatry”.

Grant: US$29,920

Dates: April 2016 – March 2017

Website: http://mentecerebro.com/

In what way is the human being unique? Singularity as a convergence point of philosophy, theology, and the sciences

This project deals with some problematic aspect of the thesis of the irreducibility of the person, in an interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, theology and the sciences. Its starting point is the verification of two problematic aspects of this thesis: first, the lack of a common ground for an interdisciplinary dialogue and, therefore, the need for an open notion, that allows an exchange and intersection of ideas regarding irreducibility; second, the need to tackle the philosophical implications of the epistemic acknowledgement underlying the thesis of irreducibility. The central argument of the project holds that those two problematic aspects converge in a systematic manner in the notion of singularity. Thus, the research puts forward this notion both as a point of convergence of meanings, experiences and theoretical accesses connected to irreducibility, i.e. as an operative notion for an interdisciplinary dialogue, as well as of several metaphysical and epistemological problems connected to the subject of ineffability of individuals and the unique and unrepeatable character of singulars. The general question that stems from this argument is: In which sense is the person irreducible in the cosmos, i.e. unique and unrepeatable? The project will produce a number of articles in scientific journals, workshops with international guests, public conferences and an essay contest for high-school students..

Grant: US$12,529

Dates: March 2016 – January 2017