To further our efforts to become comprehensivists, we need to provision a toolkit to come to understand our worlds more and more broadly and deeply. What resources might we mobilize in our quest to comprehensively comprehend our worlds and its peoples?
This question is explored in the essay “Humanity’s Great Traditions of Inquiry and Action” at https://www.cjfearnley.com/CfC/2020/07/humanitys-great-traditions-of-inquiry-and-action/
The essay proposes this comprehensive list of humanity’s traditions of inquiry and action: ideas, material culture, social structures, and experiences.
In addition, the event will examine (as the essay does) how a comprehensivist might explore Humanity’s Great Traditions of Inquiry and Action, that is, how we might practice comprehensivism.
The presentation and Q&A sections of all “52 Living Ideas” Meetups are recorded and posted on YouTube. Feel free to keep your video on or off as you prefer.
Structure of the event:
1. The ken of the Comprehensivist: Humanity’s Great Traditions of Inquiry and Action.
This will include a 5-10 minute presentation by CJ Fearnley followed by Q&A. Then participants will join breakout rooms with a group of 6-8 people so that each person can discuss:
* Does the classification of Humanity’s Great Traditions of Inquiry and Action into ideas, material culture, social structures, and experiences circumscribe the ken of the comprehensivist? (“ken” means the range of what one can know or understand as defined at Wordnet: http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=ken)
* How would you encompass the inventory of approaches or traditions that we might mobilize in our quest to comprehensively comprehend our worlds and its peoples?
2. The practice of Comprehensivism: Exploring Humanity’s Great Traditions of Inquiry and Action
This will include a 5-10 minute presentation by CJ Fearnley followed by Q&A. Then participants will join breakout rooms with a group of 6-8 people so that each person can discuss:
* How should an aspiring comprehensivist decide which tradition(s) of inquiry and action to explore next?
* Which of Humanity’s great traditions of inquiry and action do you want to explore next?
3. Then we will come back together in the large group and every attendee will have the opportunity of giving their reflections and takeaways for 2-3 minutes. Then we will wrap up.
Welcome to the series “Comprehensivist Wednesdays”. Transdisciplinarity, Renaissance humanism, homo universalis, and Polymathy are some of the ways of describing this approach which Buckminster Fuller called Comprehensivity and described as “macro-comprehensive and micro-incisive”.
CJ Fearnley’s site “Collaborating for Comprehensivism” has more information on the subject: https://www.cjfearnley.com/CfC/
To see all events https://www.meetup.com/52LivingIdeas/events/calendar/
A Meetup Every Day, Every Week, For Everyone!
July 15: Why Be a Comprehensivist? — a Panel Discussion. Watch at https://youtu.be/qjwTy6pGkNA
July 22: Louis Sullivan’s Ideas: Art of Expression & Form Follows Function with Architect Sherri Tracinski & Shrikant. Watch at http://y2u.be/oM8vbQQ-4MU
Jul 29: Humanity’s Great Traditions of Inquiry and Action with CJ
Aug 5: Optimize Everything: Interview with mathematician Spencer Greenberg on Psychology, society, technology & science
Aug 12: The Necessities and Impossibilities of being a Comprehensivist
Aug 19: Polymaths in 21st Century with Angela
Aug 26: Art Education: Individual & Society with Karen
Sep 2: Neuroscience: Why are our Habits so Powerful? with Sanjay
Sep 9: Four Cardinal Greek Virtues in Visual Art & Mythology by John Roth
Sep 16: Literature and our lives: the Fiction of Relationship
Sep 23: Lightening Talks (Talk for 5 minutes about what you are exploring)
Sep 30: The Great Conversation & Syntopicon of Mortimer Adler with Shrikant