The Taboo of Subjectivity

"This book takes a new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion. Alan Wallace draws careful distinctions between four elements of the scientific tradition: science itself, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism. Arguing that the metaphysical doctrine of scientific materialism has taken on the role of ersatz-religion for its adherents, he traces its development from its Greek and Judeo-Christian origins, focusing on the interrelation between the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution." "Wallace argues that the metaphysical principles of scientific materialism have long impeded scientific research into subjective states of awareness, including the nature of consciousness itself. Drawing on the writings of William James, Hilary Putnam, Augustine, and Indian Buddhist contemplatives such as Buddhaghosa, Asanga, and Padmasambhava, he presents a theoretical framework and mode of inquiry into human consciousness that combines both extraspective and introspective methods of research." "In exploring the nature of consciousness, this study will help to bridge the chasm between religious belief and scientific knowledge. It is essential reading for philosophers and historians of science, scholars of religion, and anyone interested in the relationship between science and religion."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Spiritual, Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.