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''The Phenomenon of Man'' (''Le phénomène humain'', 1955) is a book written by the French philosopher, paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In this work, Teilhard describes evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity, culminating in the unification of consciousness. The book was finished in the 1930s, but was published posthumously in 1955. The Roman Catholic Church initially prohibited the publication of some of Teilhard’s writings on the grounds that they contradicted orthodoxy. The foreword to the book was written by one of the key scientific advocates for natural selection and evolution of the 20th century, and a co-developer of the modern synthesis in biology, Julian Huxley. == Summary == Teilhard views evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity. From the cell to the thinking animal, a process of psychical concentration leads to greater consciousness.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 169.〕 The emergence of ''Homo sapiens'' marks the beginning of a new age, as the power acquired by consciousness to turn in upon itself raises humankind to a new sphere.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 165.〕 Borrowing Huxley’s expression, Teilhard describes humankind as evolution becoming conscious of itself.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 220.〕 In Teilhard's conception of the evolution of the species, a collective identity begins to develop as trade and the transmission of ideas increases.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 205.〕 Knowledge accumulates and is transmitted in increasing levels of depth and complexity.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 178.〕 This leads to a further augmentation of consciousness and the emergence of a thinking layer that envelops the earth.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 244.〕 Teilhard calls the new membrane the “noosphere” (from the Greek “''nous''”, meaning mind), a term first coined by Vladimir Vernadsky. The noosphere is the collective consciousness of humanity, the networks of thought and emotion in which all are immersed.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 278.〕 The development of science and technology causes an expansion of the human sphere of influence, allowing a person to be simultaneously present in every corner of the world. Teilhard argues that humanity has thus become cosmopolitan, stretching a single organized membrane over the Earth.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 241.〕 Teilhard describes the process by which this happens as a "gigantic psychobiological operation, a sort of mega-synthesis, the “super-arrangement” to which all the thinking elements of the earth find themselves today individually and collectively subject".〔 The rapid expansion of the noosphere requires a new domain of psychical expansion, which "is staring us in the face if we would only raise our heads to look at it".〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 253.〕 In Teilhard’s view, evolution will culminate in the Omega Point, a sort of supreme consciousness. Layers of consciousness will converge in Omega, fusing and consuming them in itself.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 259.〕 The concentration of a conscious universe will reassemble in itself all consciousnesses as well as all that we are conscious of.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 261.〕 Teilhard emphasizes that each individual facet of consciousness will remain conscious of itself at the end of the process.〔''The Phenomenon of Man'', Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961, p. 262.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Phenomenon of Man」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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