Course: Value is Real: Why Saying This Clearly May Save Civilization [and our Souls] - (with Marc Gafni and Zak Stein)
A Parallax Course This September
The Eye of Value
In this course, Gafni and Stein deepen the themes raised in the David J Temple book, First Principles and First Values. The Eye of Value is contrasted with the Eye-of-Anti-Value, and the topics of anthro-ontology, story, and value are explored in depth. Marc and Zak will engage participants in a series of dialogues at the edges of human knowledge, where there is a dance between the languages of science and the sacred, and between the lineages of ancient wisdom and our living memory of the future.
Saturdays:
September 7/14/21/28
2024
8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
90 Minute Sessions
Full Ticket includes 4 Saturday Zoom Classes with Q&A/ 4 Digital Campfires Zoom discussion on following Sundays (see below for times)
Online Ticket includes 4 Saturday Zoom Classes with Q&A
Offline Ticket includes all recorded Saturday Zoom Classes with Q&A
All tickets include the digital version of First Principles and First Values by David J Temple
Price: €260/200€/100€ Tiers
Course Content
Who is David J. Temple?
David J. Temple is a fictional personality created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. The two primary authors behind David J. Temple are Marc Gafni and Zak Stein. For different projects specific writers will be named as be part of the collaboration.
In his new book, First Principles and First Values, David J Temple has argued that the collapse of value at the heart of global culture is the root cause of proliferating Global Catastrophic and Existential Risks making up the Metacrisis. Exploring the truth of this suggests that radical educational innovation is needed to (re)align humans with the Universal Field of Cosmic Value. Essential to the survival of humanity is the capacity to engage the "eye of value"—the human ability to perceive intrinsic value. The question of what kinds of capacities are needed for humanity to navigate planetary meta-crisis reframes our debates. Concrete recommendations and ongoing projects are discussed, in the context of the imminent planetary catastrophe, driven in large part by the incapacitation—the blinding—of the eye of value.
Class I - The Eye of Value: Redux
Lecture and Q&A: Saturday, September 7th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Campfire: Sunday, September 8th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Discussion: The central themes of David J Temple's work are discussed, focusing on the core approach of evolving perennialism. Sections from the recent book, First Principles and First Values, serves as a springboard for a dynamic overview of the emerging philosophy of Cosmo-Erotic Humanism.
Topics include: the Field of Value, Universal Grammar of Value, The Eye of Value, and the Global Intimacy Disorder at the root of the Metacrisis.
Class II - The Eye of Anti-Value: Theodicy
Lecture and Q&A: Saturday, September 14th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Campfire: Sunday, September 15th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Discussion: Discussion of value must always include the possibilities of anti-value, which has long been called evil. In this course, we explore the discussion of evil in First Principles and First Values as a way of widening and focusing our own Eye of Value.
Topics include: Moloch and Evil; the dynamics of anti-value, the antidote to anti-value, the theodicy enabled by opening the Eye of Value.
Class III– Anthro-Ontology: Methods
Lecture and Q&A: Saturday, September 21th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Campfire: Sunday, September 22th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Discussion: The anthro-ontological method is a kind of science and enables the transformation of the sciences as we know them. Transcending but including the disciplines of epistemology, phenomenology, and ontology—there is a method for knowing, loving, and transforming what is real and of most value.
Topics include the steps of the intro-ontological methods, the philosophy of science, the interior sciences, and phenomenology as ontology.
Class IV – Anthro-Ontology: History
Lecture and Q&A: Saturday, September 28th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
Campfire: Sunday, September 29th, 8:30 am PDT (Los Angeles), 11:30 am EDT (New York), 5:30 pm CET (Paris)
The project of evolving perrenislim stands on the shoulders of giants. Historical precedence is explored in this final class, as sacred texts are re-illuminated, ancient practices of the interior sciences are traced into modernity, and we envision their future within the advances of World Religion.
Topics include the history of the great traditions, Renaissance Kabbalah and its impact on Modernity, and first Second Wave Perennialism.
* Assignments are given after each class.
About your facilitators
Dr. Marc Gafni
Dr. Marc is a visionary thinker, social activist, and passionate philosopher. He is known for his “source code teachings,” including Unique Self theory, Non-Dual Humanism, Evolving Perennialism, the Intimate Universe, and Digital Intimacy. He is author of over twenty-five books, including A Return to Eros and the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, as well as Orthodox rabbinic ordination. He teaches both publically and in long term mentorship’s with leading students, with the aim of participating in the articulation of what Dr. Gafni together with Dr. Zak Stein, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Ken Wilber and colleagues are calling CosmoErotic Humanism. At the core of CosmoErotic Humanism is what Dr. Gafni and Dr. Stein are calling ‘First Principles and First Values,’ Anthro-Ontology and a “Universal Grammar of Value” which can then serve as the matrix for a global ethos for a global civilization. Dr. Gafni is the Co-Founder and Co-President of the Office for the Future, the Center for World Religion and Philosophy and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. At the core of their shared missions is the articulation and delivery into culture of a Great Library - in multiple forms - which participates in evolving the source code of consciousness and culture in response to the Meta Crisis.
Dr. Zak Stein
Dr. Zak Stein studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business.
He is also a writer whose work has appeared in a variety of journals including American Psychologist, New Ideas in Psychology, Mind, Brain, and Education, Integral Review, and the Journal of Philosophy of Education.
He has published two books, Social Justice and Educational Measurement a dissertation that traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications, and Education in a Time Between Worlds, which expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly.