The way toward wisdom
is through metaphysics

Spirituality Without Spirits?:
Why Materialism is Not Enough

THE WAY TOWARD WISDOM
An Interdisciplinary, Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics
Benedict M. Ashley, O.P.

'With a few exceptions, the relation of modern science to medieval natural philosophy is a question that has been largely shunned in the Neothomistic era, in favor of a preoccupation with establishing a “realist metaphysics” that has no need for science in the modern sense nor, for that matter, any need for natural philosophy either. Fr. Ashley’s work confronts this narrow preoccupation head-on, arguing that, in the view of St. Thomas himself, there can be no human wisdom which leaves aside scientific development. Ashley even goes so far as to point the way to the possible development of philosophy beyond the terms of the realist / idealist framework in which Neothomism had its say.' -- John N. Deely, "In the Twilight of Neothomism, a Call for a New Beginning—A Return in Philosophy to the Idea of Progress by Deepening Insight Rather than by Substitution: A Review of The Way toward Wisdom", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 83.2 (Spring 2009): 267-278.

Research in World Views

'What then about the fostering of Metascience in the modern university, since, as I have argued, metaphysics since Descartes also requires a radical revision if it is to really guide and unify the other disciplines without undermining their proper autonomy? In most cultures there has not been a sharp distinction between "philosophy" and "religion." Thus to exclude the study of religion (theology) from our universities makes it automatically impossible for them to be multiculturally open. These universities must come to recognize the contextual limits that their own Western, Post-Enlightenment thought has imposed on what they teach and the ways they teach it. Metascience in a broad sense that does not exclude openness to forms of knowledge other than those of western scientism must be developed in our universities and given the task of enabling them to achieve genuine interdisciplinarity and multiculturalism.
Departments of "religious studies" which scrupulously avoid questions of truth cannot perform this function adequately. What we need is not departments in the university that are simply "philosophy" or "religious studies." We need a major department of "Research in World Views" that will inform students about the bases not only of their own culture but of the others they will encounter. Then students will be prepared for serious dialogue about what in these various cultures can provide common ground for global culture, for an increasing unum in pluribus. Metascience independent of particular faith commitments, as it has been described in this book, has precisely that aim.
Christian universities represent a great international culture that is inevitably a major player in any multicultural dialogue at the sapiential level. Christian culture has played a leading role in the historical development of the university, yet because its theologians and philosophers in the post-Galilean epoch withdrew from active dialogue with developing natural science, it remains isolated. Christians must now accept the laborious and even painful task of rethinking the foundations of natural science and of a Metascience grounded in such a revised natural science. It will then be effective in a mediating, ecumenical role between Secular Humanism that threatens to reduce all cultures to its own ideological perspective and the cultures of the world that recognize spiritual reality.
In this task a Christian university must not only promote dialogue with its monotheist partners, the Jews and the Muslims, but it must also learn to dialogue with the naturalist and spiritualist monism of most other cultures. No doubt it will find in these cultures implicit tendencies to monotheism that will become a common ground for dialogue. Such dialogue is possible, however, only if monotheists are as open to the emphasis of monists on a deep spirituality and respect for the natural material world and the human body. It must be admitted, however, that universities with a religious orientation, such as the many Catholic institutions in the Untied States, are under great cultural and economic pressure for secularization. Most of the Protestant universities have already succumbed.' -- Benedict Ashley, The Way toward Wisdom, pp.442-443.