"Content" for Kosmological Orientation
To infinity and beyond the merely conceptual valence of scientific cosmology
This post marks the birth of 𝓜𝓲𝓬𝓻𝓸𝓚𝓸𝓼𝓶—a blog, podcast, and art project intended to foster kosmological orientation. Why the “K”? The English “cosmos”—originating from the Greek κόσμος—would better reflect its etymological roots if it were spelled with a “K.”
But, more specifically, I am inspired by the late philosopher Raimon Panikkar to use this spelling so as to recuperate its classical meaning and break from the exclusively conceptual representation of the universe held up by today’s reigning scientism. As Panikkar writes in his magisterial work, The Rhythm of Being,
“I understand by kosmology not a calculating logos about the cosmos, as in current ‘cosmological’ doctrines that attempt to decipher the intriguing enigmas of the universe by a specifically “scientific” method. By kosmology I understand the kosmos-legein—that is, the self-disclosure of the cosmos as human consciousness “hears” or “sees” the cosmos “speak” or “manifest” itself in every culture that has developed such a sensitivity. It is, in other words, how Man feels, understands, suffers, and knows the cosmos when receiving, as it were, the revelation of the cosmos. Kosmology is that which discloses itself when Man is attentive to the disclosure of the cosmos, and deciphers, surmises, or understands what the cosmos is saying.”
Said another way,
“By Kosmology I understand the science (in its classical meaning of scientia, gnōsis, jñâna…) about the holistic sense of the kosmos, the logos on and about the kosmos, the “word of the cosmos.” Kosmology is a kosmos-legein, a “reading” of the kosmos, the disclosure of the world to our human consciousness by means of all the forms of knowledge we may possess. Kosmology is mainly understood here in the sense of the subjective genitive: the logos, the word of the kosmos that Man should try to hear and to understand by attuning himself to the music of this world, to “the mysteries of the kosmos.”
And though Panikkar is critical of the exclusively conceptual character of contemporary scientific cosmology, as a scientist himself (one of his doctoral degrees was in chemistry!) he insists that the new kosmology must recognize this aspect of the universe while simultaneously recognizing it as a symbol. As he writes,
“The new kosmology I am envisioning is neither an updating of the old “worldviews” nor a mere reform of the new (or newest) cosmology, but a transformation of both.”
Such is the aspiration of this project: to create “content” (i.e. essays, interviews, art, podcast conversations) that reflects this new, upwelling kosmology with the character of the subjective genitive—the self-disclosure of the cosmos in human consciousness—while at the same time carrying forth the conceptual rigor associated with conventional cosmology. This is quite close to Rudolf Steiner’s intention for “anthroposophy,” what he also often called “spiritual science.” As he says in Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, “Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.”
Can you remember who and what you are, 𝓜𝓲𝓬𝓻𝓸𝓚𝓸𝓼𝓶?