5.18 Cosmic Life, Cosmic Purpose: A Review

In this episode, our host (Sam Mickey) reviews two books that engage with questions about the place of life, meaning, and purpose in the universe. First, he discusses the anthology, Towards a Philosophy of Cosmic Life: New Discussions and Interdisciplinary Views, edited by David Bartosh, Attila Grandpierre, and Bei Peng (Springer, 2024). It's notable for its interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives on the inherence of life in the universe. It includes a wonderful chapter by John B. Cobb, Jr. (1925-2024), a scholar of ecological civilization steeped in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Second, Sam discusses Cosmic Purpose, by Kagawa Toyohiko (1888-1960) (Wipf and Stock, 2014). Kagawa was a Japanese philosopher and Evangelical Christian who, similar to the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, sought to align theological understanding of meaning and purpose with scientific discoveries of the evolution of life and the universe. If you are interested in ideas of purpose (teleology), these books are definitely worth reading.