Michael Bruce Patrick George

Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies,

St. Thomas University, Fredericton, Canada

​Foundational, Social, and Applied; Religion and Culture; Integrative Bioethics; Philosophical and Theological Hermeneutics; Imagination, Narrative, & History. - Visiting Scholar at the University Centre for Integrative Bioethics, University of Zagreb, 2024-2025

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Interpretation and the Project of Ethics: Dualism, Complexity, and

Meaning- A Psycho-historical Tragi-comedy.

 

I propose a meta-narrative, a story about our stories, where human interpretation reveals the limitations and contingencies that shape and affect us all. The ethical project is continuous and unavoidable, all of which encompasses the myriad variations of the question “what should we/I do?”. From myth/legend, to religious formulations, the most basic tendency has been to understand ourselves dualistically, or in pairs of opposites. Modernity, at its best, has introduced new, but not complete, paradigms of reality and the beginnings of historical consciousness. From science, we begin to recognize that the fundamental proclivity of life is to move towards complexity, all opposing human tendencies notwithstanding. The constitutive dimension of consciousness is always about and towards meaning, a higher order project (culture), presumably with an intention to live in an integrated fashion. The meta-story encompasses the tensions between our sense/feelings of necessity and the possibility of growth and openness. Critical evaluation of ourselves is required if improvement in the human condition is to emerge as an identifiable probability. Philosophically, I am suggesting that a critical realist perspective provides the best method of understanding this larger project.

 

Three Questions for Dialogue:

1) What accounts for the continuing appeal of dualism?

2) What happens to communities when there are no longer shared common stories?

3) Is it possible for the human species to mature, develop and grow?

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Links:

https://iep.utm.edu/lonergan/ - Most relevant link/materials- B. Lonergan’s Critical Realism

https://medium.com/@junp01/an-introduction-to-complexity-theory-3c20695725f8

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8578/8578-h/8578-h.htm F. Dostoevsky “The Grand Inquisitor”.

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Biography

Michael George (Iserlohn, Germany-1959) is an Associate Professor at St. Thomas University in Canada and has taught there since 1988. During his tenure, he has served as Department Chair for 13 years and was the Co-ordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies from 2013-2020. He teaches Ethics, (foundational and applied), Bioethics, Hermeneutics, as well as Religion and Culture. He received a B.A. from York University, 1981, then a M.A. in Religion and Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University, 1983, a Certificate in Theology, 1985, another M.A. in Ethics, 1986, and a Ph.D. in Ethics/Theology, 1994, (the last three degrees all) from Saint Paul University and the University of Ottawa. He has been a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Split, and twice a Visiting Scholar at the University Centre for Integrative Bioethics at the University of Zagreb.

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