Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

LETTER  TO THE EDITOR
C. P. Snow and the Third Culture
Oskar Gruenwald, Ph.D.

    Condensed in: Chronicle of Higher Education (20 January 2006): B17. Cf. Full Text: I read with some puzzlement David P. Barash's op ed on "C. P. Snow: Bridging the Two-Cultures Divide" (Chronicle Review, 25 November 2005: B10-11).  Barash's major point is well-taken that today science and the humanities seem as far apart as in Snow's day, and that specialization and compartmentalization of knowledge have progressed even further. What Barash underestimates, however, is the considerable bridge-building which has taken place, especially over the last two decades: the growth of interdisciplinary scholarship, and even interdisciplinary scholarly societies, centers, and institutes, which are slowly, but surely, reshaping the academic landscape.

    There are by now many promising efforts in the U.S. and abroad toward bridging the gulf between science and the humanities. These include the American Scientific Affiliation, the Association for Integrative Studies, the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, the Canyon Institute for Advanced Studies, the Pascal Centre for Advanced Studies in Faith and Science (Canada), the Karl Heim Society and Institute for Faith and Science (Germany), interdisciplinary centers at the University of Cambridge, Paris and Vienna, the International Christian Studies Association, and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, among others.  By 2004, even the National Academy of Sciences has endorsed interdisciplinary approaches in both the natural and social sciences in its comprehensive report, Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research.

    While the 2004 NAS Report comes some two decades after the founding of IIR-ICSA in 1983, it nonetheless confirms the rationale and the need for interdisciplinary research due to a growing recognition of the complexity and interdependence of all phenomena. Thus, IIR-ICSA co-sponsor the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Interfaith Dialogue (1989--), a refereed trilingual thematic annual, which seeks to connect all disciplines in dialogue, and re-connect once more knowledge, ethics and faith. JIS has appeared thus far in 17 volumes (ca. 3,808 pages), with the 2005 double issue on "Science and Religion: The Missing Link."  In fact, the entire 2005 volume is dedicated not only to revisiting C. P. Snow and the major venues in science-theology dialogue, but building bridges across Snow's purported divide.

    For example, my essay, "The Third Culture: An Integral Vision of the Human Condition" (JIS XVII 2005: 139-160), posits what Barash tends to bracket or dismiss: That both science and the humanities are pathways to knowledge, reflecting the incarnational dimension of man created in the image of God-–imago Dei (Genesis 1:26-27)-–as a living soul, gifted with the capacities of reason, free will, the moral imperative (the Tao), consciousness, and self-consciousness. The essay recaps briefly Snow's The Two Cultures, including his "A Second Look" (1963), pointing out both strengths and weaknesses, and then explores the challenge of science and technology in the Third Millennium, why science needs ethics, and that ethics implicates metaphysics. The essay concludes that man is "the missing link" in the science-theology dialogue as well as the bridge that connects science and the humanities. The essay thus calls for nurturing a Third Culture, understood as a sapiential, existential, and eschatological challenge of unity in diversity, a truly human culture, that is, a culture of cultures.

    What might surprise C. P. Snow today is that, unlike Barash, even the American Association for the Advancement of Science takes religion and faith-based research seriously, featuring a lively Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion.  Sir Francis Bacon-–father of the modern scientific method--along with many great scientists, philosophers, humanists, and those whom Barash calls "faith based zealots," would be pleased.  Indeed, Daniel Yankelovich counsels in "Ferment and Change: Higher Education in 2015" (B6-9) that a major challenge for U.S. higher education in the next decade is to address the popular quest for "other ways of knowing and finding truth-–particularly religious belief," as well as enhance cross-cultural understanding, foreign language and area studies.  Meanwhile, readers of this Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies are enjoying a preview of what research, integrative learning, and college curricula might look like in the twenty-first century.

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