Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program

The Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness graduate program offers both masters and doctoral degrees as part of the School of Consciousness and Transformation at the California Institute of Integral Studies. As with other programs at CIIS, PCC combines an academic curriculum with a broadly spiritual approach to learning, including Romantic and other Western esoteric influences.

The spirit underlying the creation of the PCC program emerged in part during a three-year conference entitled “Revisioning Philosophy” that was held in the late 1980s at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Many of the conference’s participants (including Huston Smith, Robert Solomon, Jacob Needleman, Michael Murphy, Robert Bellah, and Brian Swimme) were “committed to some form of spiritual teaching and/or practice, and brought to this symposium an interest in the relationship between philosophy and a spiritually-based epistemology.”[1] Following a large grant from Lawrence S. Rockefeller in 1994, the program was founded at CIIS by Robert A. McDermott (president of the Institute at the time), Richard Tarnas, Brian Swimme, and David Ulansey. In 1997, Sean M. Kelly joined the faculty, followed by Elizabeth Allison in 2009.

Influences

Major influences on the program's curriculum include the depth psychology of Carl Jung, the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner, the evolutionary cosmologies of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry, the cultural philosophy of Jean Gebser, the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, and the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo.

Courses

PCC offers courses across many disciplines, including depth psychology, philosophy of religion, cosmology, ecology, and cultural history. Course titles include: "Synchronicity and its Implications," "Modern Western Esotericism: Theosophy and Anthroposophy," "The Alchemy of Permaculture," "The Evolution of Consciousness," "Nietzsche’s Life and Work," and "Science, Ecology, and Contested Knowledge(s)."[2]

References

  1. ↑ Robert A. McDermott, “Philosophy as Spiritual Discipline,” from Towards, Winter 1989, 3:2, p. 36
  2. ↑ http://www.ciis.edu/Academics/Graduate_Programs/Philosophy_Cosmology_and_Consciousness_/Course_of_Study.html

External links

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