Truth Emerging

Foreword by Ilia Delio

Introduction

1. Is Our Civilization in Terminal Decline?

2. How Can Philosophy Illuminate Transcendence?

3. What Is the “New Truth” about Evolution?

4. What, Then, Is Noosphere Evolution?

5. What Is the Interior Universe?

• Broadening Our Definition of Nature
• Evolution’s Three Domains of Development: Objective, Subjective, and Intersubjective

6. What Makes the Value Triad of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty So Significant?

• The Being and Becoming of the Primary Values
• Examples of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty
• The Three Primary Values Form a Dynamic System
• The Primary Values in Practice

7. What Are the Structures of Noosphere Evolution?

• The Emergence of Modernity
• The Emergence of Progressive Postmodernity

8. How Does the New Truth Change Our Thinking?

9. How Can the New Truth Be Practiced or Lived Out?

• How Higher Purposes Are Used and Practiced
• The New Truth Makes Us Happy
• The New Truth Evolves Consciousness

10. Is the New Truth a Religion?

11. So, What Counts as Progress in Noosphere Evolution?

• Progress’s Abundant Critics
• Progress from a Developmental Perspective

12. How Can We Grow into the Next Level of Noosphere Evolution?

• Countering Cultural Relativism
• Negating the Negation

13. How Can We Avoid the Pitfalls of Utopianism?

• Integrating the Real and the Ideal
• Lessons from the Structure of Evolutionary Emergence

14. How Can the New Truth Evolve Politics?

• Evolving Political Consciousness
• Why Centrism Fails
• Preserving Traditionalism’s Contribution to the Structure of Noosphere Evolution

15. How Can the New Truth Evolve the Economy?

• The Great Enrichment
• Evolving Our Understanding of Wealth
• The Future Attractor of a Goodness, Truth, and Beauty Economy

16. How Can the New Truth Evolve Psychology?

• Higher Purpose as a Touchstone for Psychological Well-Being and Spiritual Growth
• Transcendence and the Practice of Virtues
• The Psychology of Post-Postmodern Culture Is Essentially Positive

17. How Can the New Truth Evolve Philosophy?

• What the Philosophy of the New Truth Affirms
• What the Philosophy of the New Truth Negates

18. How Can the New Truth Evolve Religion?

• Contemporary Categories of Spirituality
• Removing Barriers to the Further Growth of Spirituality Overall
• The New Truth’s Natural Theology of Spiritual Experience

19. Which Reality Frames Are Compatible with the New Truth?

• Unifying Mind and Matter
• Unifying Being and Becoming
• Creation Through Subtraction
• The Infinite in the Finite

20. What, Then, Is Transcendence?

• Level One: Transcendence as Inherent Meaningfulness
• Level Two: Transcendence as Progress in Value
• Level Three: Transcendence as the Process of Evolutionary Emergence Itself
• Level Four: Transcendence as the Upward Current of Value Energy
• Level Five: Transcendence as Growth Within a Cosmic Dimension of Value
• Level Six: Transcendence as the Overarching Purpose of the Finite Universe

Overview of Part II

21. Is Our Civilization in Terminal Decline?

• On Humanity’s Contemporary Challenges

22. How Can Philosophy Illuminate Transcendence?

• On What Philosophy Is Good For

23. What Is the “New Truth” About Evolution?

• Background and References for the New Truth’s Ten Points

24. What, Then, Is Noosphere Evolution?

• A Brief History of the Investigation of Sociocultural Evolution

25. What Is the Interior Universe?

• In Defense of Ontological Objectivity
• In Defense of Ontological Subjectivity
• In Defense of Ontological Intersubjectivity
• Mapping the Structure of Evolutionary Emergence
• Ken Wilber’s Four-Quadrant Model of Evolution: An Appreciative Critique
• Why It Is Important to Get These Metaphysical Categories Right

26. What Makes the Value Triad of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty So Significant?

• On the “Transcendentals”
• Regarding the Analogy to Primary Colors
• On Value Energy and the Upward Current of the Good
• On the Practice Circuits of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty

27. What Are the Structures of Noosphere Evolution?

• In Defense of Cultural Stages
• A Brief Description of the Major Stages of Cultural Evolution
• Empirical Evidence for Large-Scale Worldview Structures

28. How Does the New Truth Change Our Thinking?

• On the Evolution of Human Nature
• A Constructive Critique of Developmental Psychology

29. How Can the New Truth Be Practiced or Lived Out?

• On Each Worldview’s “Superpowers”
• The Superpowers of Post-Postmodern Cultural Consciousness

30. Is the New Truth a Religion?

• A Justification for Using Religion and Spirituality as Direct Synonyms

31. So, What Counts as Progress in Noosphere Evolution?

• Why the Concept of Progress Is Resisted
• Recognizing Natural Progress in Evolution

32. How Can We Grow into the Next Level of Noosphere Evolution?

• Regarding the Term Post-Postmodern and Its Potential Alternatives
• Necessary Elements for an Authentically Post-Postmodern Synthesis
• In Defense of the Dialectical Construct: Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis

33. How Can We Avoid the Pitfalls of Utopianism?

• Utopianism and Hope

34. How Can the New Truth Evolve Politics?

• Developmental Politics Simplified in Five Charts
• Progressive Postmodernism’s Existential Political Problem

35. How Can the New Truth Evolve the Economy?

• In Defense of Economic Freedom—A Personal Story
• How the New Truth Can Evolve Our Understanding of Economic Value

36. How Can the New Truth Evolve Psychology?

• In Defense of Positivity
• On the Unity of the Virtues

37. How Can the New Truth Evolve Philosophy?

• Developmental Philosophy’s Seminal Progenitors
• Sources and References for the Seven Tenets of Developmental Philosophy

38. How Can the New Truth Evolve Religion?

• Regarding Post-Postmodern Culture’s Social Norm of Spiritual Pluralism

39. Which Reality Frames Are Compatible with the New Truth?

• Regarding the Challenge of the “Problem of Evil”
• Regarding Names for Ultimate Reality

40. What, Then, Is Transcendence?

• On Level Four: Transcendence as the Upward Current of Value Energy
• On Level Five: Transcendence as Growth Within a Cosmic Dimension of Value
• On Level Six: Transcendence as the Overarching Purpose of the Finite Universe

Acknowledgments

Sources

Select Bibliography

Index