The Metaphysics of Modern Existence, by Vine Deloria Jr.

First publication: 1979

“Let’s face it—even three decades ago any book about metaphysics would have been a hard sell to the general reading public. This was the post-Castenada era, but what I would call the pre–New Age Princess White Sparrow era, where a book by an American Indian scholar, like Deloria, on modern, i.e., Western, metaphysics was incomprehensible. Ten years later, any book on metaphysics by the princess would have sold a million, as long as it was advertised as steeped in ancient Native spirituality. This is part of the prejudiced and stereotypical view of tribal peoples many Americans possess: the narrow range of views they have about who we are and the possibility of American Indian intellectual engagement with ideas outside their own tribal traditions—not to mention the stereotypical poverty and primitiveness the general public is willing to ascribe to indigenous intellectual traditions.

. . . Vine Deloria Jr.’s The Metaphysics of Modern Existence was radical in 1979 because it examined in a single work the ideas, theories, and research of Ian Barbour, Werner Heisenberg, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Paul Tillich, Robert Ardrey, Karl Jung, Marshall McCluhan, and Alvin Toffler: two physicists, a Jesuit priest/philosopher, a theologian, a popular writer on paleoanthropology, a psychologist, an English literature professor and communications theorist, and the most popular futurist of the 1970s. Nearly three decades ago, Deloria was modeling what would now be called inter- or transdisciplinary thinking and research. And in doing so, he was violating the accepted academic norm of addressing topics very narrowly within academic disciplines. His synthetic and integrative analysis was deeply disturbing to academic scholars.

. . . What disappointed Vine most was that few seemed to want to join the search for “new trails in thinking.” Few seemed ready to start honest and difficult dialogues about what it would mean to envision how we might live as mature human beings on a planet plagued by what might be called our human immaturity. With the republication of Metaphysics, the invitation is now being extended a second time—I am hopeful that many are now ready to join the search and engage in a three-decades-long-overdue dialogue.” (Foreword for the 2012 edition, by Daniel R. Wildcat)

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Chapters

Introduction

  1. A Planet in Transition
  2. Transforming Reality
  3. A Divided Vision
  4. Space-Time
  5. The Process of Life
  6. Whither Evolutionists?
  7. The Structure of Life
  8. Transforming Instincts
  9. The Human Mind
  10. The Quickening Pace
  11. Our Social Groupings
  12. Our Transforming Institutions
  13. Expanding the Legal Universe
  14. The Charismatic Model
  15. Tribal Religious Realities
  16. The Traumatic Planetary Past
  17. Theologians and Scientists
  18. The Future of Theology
  19. The Transformation of Science
  20. The Metaphysics of Modern Existence