Cultivating Noosphere Evolution in the Spirit of Teilhard and Whitehead

Abstract: The philosophy of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead, interpreted in generalized combination, offers a politically potent prescription for the further evolution of human culture. Analyzing the structural sequence of evolutionary emergence in the noosphere shows how the large-scale worldviews of modernity and postmodernity have each advanced cultural evolution in their own way. This analysis also reveals how the tension between modernism and postmodernism expresses a dialectical relationship of thesis and antithesis. Tracing the trajectory of noosphere emergence accordingly points to the potential for a future cultural synthesis, one that transcends the worst and includes the best of these extant cultural structures. This potential synthesis can be achieved by following Whitehead’s criteria for evolutionary progress: increasing the capacity to experience intrinsic value. This synthetic move thus entails expanding the value frame of progressive postmodern culture by embracing the full diversity of valid values and viewpoints represented by the developed world’s contemporary spectrum of cultural evolution. The paper concludes by arguing that those who understand noosphere evolution, even if partially, are called to become advocates for our culture’s next evolutionary step—a transcendent and inclusive new whole through which “the many” can “become one, and increase by one.”

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For the last forty years, I have been continuously inspired by the writing of both Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead. But unlike most of the distinguished academics who are presenting at this conference, I am not a professional scholar of either Teilhard’s or Whitehead’s philosophy. Nevertheless, what we might recognize as the “combined spirit of Teilhard and Whitehead” serves as a foundation for my work as an author and social entrepreneur. For me, this combined spirit is found in their shared focus on the universal process of becoming, together with their insights into the spiritual significance of the scientific facts of evolution.

In this paper, I will consider how this generalized spirit of Teilhard and Whitehead points to a positive future for the evolution of the noosphere. Despite the dire threats and challenges faced by humanity in our present historical moment, I remain hopeful that the culture of the developed world, and American culture in particular, can and will grow into a better version of itself. And I believe that the project of working to advance the evolution of human culture can be beneficially guided (or should I say “lured”?) by the combined wisdom of these two great thinkers.

Indeed, we might expect that a transcendent vision of noosphere evolution, which Teilhard and Whitehead each express in their own way, can help bring about the further evolution of our culture. Although the genius of Teilhard and Whitehead may not be adequately appreciated in our time, as I argue below, the combined spirit of these visionaries constitutes a politically potent philosophy, the revival of which can help us overcome the daunting global challenges that we now face.

Insights from the Structure of Evolutionary Emergence

Beginning in my twenties, the teaching of Teilhard that first captured my attention was his elegant description of the structure of evolutionary emergence: physiosphere-biosphere-noosphere. Although the unfolding of human history has been the focus of myriad thinkers before and after Teilhard, his situation of history within a larger evolutionary context pointed to the deeper meanings behind our universe of becoming. Then later when I began reading Whitehead and his interpreters, I could see how process philosophy, like Teilhard’s philosophy, was similarly moved by what I eventually came to see as the “spiritual teachings of evolution.”

Among the numerous “teachings” of evolution, the aspect of universal becoming which has intrigued me most is the structural sequence of evolutionary emergence. As Teilhard understood, evolution moves toward complexity and consciousness at both micro and macro scales of development. He summed this up in his brilliant observation that “the Universal and Personal … grow in the same direction and culminate simultaneously in each other.”¹

Although the patterned structure of emergence serves as the foundation for the thesis is this paper, we know from Whitehead that the course of evolutionary growth is first and foremost a dynamic process, rather than merely a built-up structure. But this large-scale process of “creative advance,” like the vital process of an ecosystem, also includes evident structural elements. In fact, there is no development that lacks a structure. Whitehead envisioned the structure of emergence as a sequence of occasions of experience, while Teilhard characterized this structure as the series of enveloping spheres mentioned above. Evolution’s process of emergent becoming is, of course, multifaceted and there are a variety of valid ways to describe its structure. But among the features that seem most significant is how, at the micro level, each of us embodies and uses this structure within our own bodies and minds—from the hydrogen atoms in our cells to the great realizations of history that uphold our modern form of consciousness. And the way this systemic structure of emergence lives within each of us suggests how this same structure is also alive at the macro level within the “organism” of the universe as a whole.

The structural sequence of evolutionary emergence has recently become the focus of popular culture through what is loosely called “Big History.” Prominent writers such as Yuval Harari and David Christian have helped make grand narratives of universal evolution fashionable. Yet when I read these popular descriptions of the story of our origins, which are explicitly advanced as a secular substitute for religious notions of our transcendent provenance, I can’t help but cringe at the flatness and vacuity of their strictly physical account of how we came to be.

This purely physical account of emergence may seem to adequately describe the trajectory of cosmological evolution through the periodic table of elements, as well as the unfolding of biological evolution through the phylogenetic tree of life (although Teilhard and Whitehead both dispute the adequacy of strictly physical explanations). But when it comes to noosphere evolution, the materialistic story becomes particularly thin and implausible. As history professor Ian Hesketh observes, “Big History reduces the vicissitudes of human history to processes that are ultimately beyond human control. What this means is that Big History necessarily privileges the cosmic at the expense of the human, the natural at the expense of the political.”²

Big History’s description of the evolution of human societies focuses almost exclusively on technology and energy flows, not only because it wants to avoid complicating its scientific pretenses with political contingencies, but also because many academics in the social sciences and humanities reject the basic idea that culture evolves. Academia’s aversion to the notion of a structure of emergence in cultural evolution is well articulated by academic philosopher William Wimsatt who writes, “[cultural evolution] conjures up shadows of an older anthropological tradition in which diverse peoples, groups, and societies were fitted—in procrustean fashion—onto a template of evolutionary progress with Western categories and social organization presumed as the apotheosis of cultural development.”³

While I acknowledge that early attempts to chart the course of cultural evolution were problematically Eurocentric, I think it is a mistake to abandon all attempts to identify the overall structure of evolutionary emergence in the noosphere. Gaining a better understanding of this structure is crucial because it is by recognizing its trajectory that we can begin to see, and effectively work for, the next step of our own cultural development.

Integral philosophy

The school of thought to which I belong, generally known as integral philosophy, goes against the grain of contemporary social science discourse. Integral philosophy strongly affirms that the nested structure of transcendence and inclusion that is evident in cosmological and biological evolution can also be found in the domain of cultural evolution. Integral philosophy also goes beyond Big History by recognizing what Teilhard called “the within of things”—the interior dimensions of the coevolution of consciousness and culture. Integral philosophy is one of several schools of thought that have grown out of, and attempted to build on, the spirit of Teilhard and Whitehead. Although some may associate integral philosophy primarily with the theories of Ken Wilber, this branch of philosophy also includes writers like me who are not “Wilberians.” Although I owe much to Wilber’s thinking, my interpretation of integral philosophy differs from his on numerous points.

Wilber and I agree, however, that the unfolding of noosphere evolution evinces structural stages of development. In fact, growth by stages is a ubiquitous feature of almost all developing systems, and the “ecosystem” of human cultural evolution is no exception. Within the wider subculture of integral thinking there are a variety of overlapping yet competing stage theories. And most of these stage theories (including Wilber’s) point to the findings of developmental psychology as their primary source of evidence. Yet while I acknowledge the important contributions of developmental psychologists such as Robert Kegan and Clare Graves, I remain skeptical of the excessive linearity and empirical claims of this branch of psychology.

So rather than basing my arguments for stages of noosphere evolution on the evidence of adult psychological development, I focus on the historical record. As discussed below, this record provides abundant evidence for the sequential emergence of large-scale cultural worldviews within the timeline of human history. I define the concept of a worldview as a coherent system of values, beliefs, and ideals that persists across multiple generations. Worldviews are widely held cultural agreements about what is good, true, and beautiful. They provide personal identity and political solidarity. As I argue in my 2020 book, Developmental Politics, worldviews are the basic units of cultural analysis and interpretation—the most fundamental structures of emergence within cultural evolution.⁴

Even those who reject the idea that noosphere evolution advances primarily through the sequential emergence of worldviews must nevertheless acknowledge the monumental significance of what Whitehead called “the modern world.” Indeed, I think the emergence of what is now widely recognized as “modernity” provides Exhibit A for the argument that worldviews constitute the primary structures of evolutionary emergence in the noosphere.

The Emergence of Modernity

As we consider the development of the noosphere over the last 10,000 years of cultural evolution, we have to acknowledge what has been called “The Great Fact.” In the places where the culture of modernity has been successfully adopted, material conditions have been immensely improved. The rise of the modern world has created unprecedented “revolutions” in science, industry, agriculture, and human rights. The advent of scientific medicine alone can be credited as having materially benefited humanity more than any other single factor in history.

Of course, many sensitive thinkers now take a dim view of modernity, characterizing it as a “brutal form of neoliberal capitalism.” But even if we feel the world would be better off if modernism had never arisen, this Great Fact is nevertheless a world-historical event of cultural emergence that must be reckoned with by those who feel called to work for the further evolution of the noosphere overall.

So what is modernity? Although it can be framed in numerous ways, I think the best characterization is that modernity is a distinct worldview—a coherent set of secular-rational values which brings about significant scientific and economic progress, and which also results in negative externalities such as environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, and gross inequality.

Yet whether we focus on modernity’s dignities or its disasters, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that modernity constitutes a stage of cultural development—a frame of values that can be compared and contrasted with the great religious worldviews that precede modernity in the timeline of history. The idea that history can be roughly divided into “modern and premodern” forms of culture is a well-established idea within many academic disciplines. And by accepting that the distinction between modern and premodern culture represents a valid interpretation of an actual turning point, or “hinge of history,” even those who reject the idea of stages of development are nevertheless working with a two-stage model.

Once this two-stage model of historical development is acknowledged (even with reservations), one doesn’t have to agree with any of the stage theories posited by developmental psychology to see the potential for a stage of cultural development beyond modernity. Adding a third “post-modern” stage to this basic model of historical development is therefore not much of a stretch. As is now apparent to even casual observers, in the last sixty years or so, a new worldview has in fact emerged beyond modernity in many parts of the developed world. This is the rise of what is perhaps best termed the “progressive postmodern worldview.”

The Emergence of Progressive Postmodernity

Like the word “postmodern,” which remains a battleground of meaning, the word “progressive” is also subject to a variety of interpretations. The mainstream media has only recently begun to distinguish “progressives” from “liberals,” thereby acknowledging a meaningful difference between center-left modernists and far-left progressives. This difference, however, is much more than merely a matter of political preference. Like traditional religious worldviews, the contemporary worldview of progressive postmodernism constitutes a coherent set of values that frames almost every aspect of what it means to live a good life. As it has come of age during this century, progressive postmodern culture can now be recognized as a historically significant worldview in its own right, one which can be compared and contrasted with the previous but still extant worldviews of secular modernism and religious traditionalism.

As with modernism and traditionalism, progressive postmodern culture also contains both dignities and disasters. The positive values of postmodernism include a heightened interest in equality and social justice, an expanded concern for the welfare of animals and the environment, and a emergent form of worldcentric morality which expands our circle of care to include everyone. If we are going to build a better world, values like these will be indispensable. The rise of progressive postmodernism, however, has also brought negatives. Following the pattern of previous forms of noosphere emergence, postmodernism has made its advance by pushing off against the problems and shortcomings of the culture that precedes it in history, which in this case is modernism. Modernity’s evident unsustainability, both environmentally and culturally, has shaped and charged the values of progressive postmodernism from the beginning. Ongoing animosity toward the modernist worldview can accordingly be seen as the binding element that ties together the wide diversity of views that are embraced within progressive culture. And it is in progressive postmodernism’s often intense anti-modernism that we can recognize its accompanying pathologies.

Pointing out progressive postmodernism’s negatives—such as its illiberalism, its performative contradictions, and its militant rejectionism—can be an unwelcome exercise within contemporary intellectual culture. But in order to understand our current state of cultural evolution with the hope of fostering further evolution, we need to view it as Teilhard did, from a planetary perspective. To gain an accurate understanding of the overall structure of noosphere evolution in which we are embedded, we need to perceive this structure not as partisans for our cultural team, but as would-be agents of evolution overall. Which means we need to clearly recognize the positives and negatives of each emergent layer within this larger structure. Seeing the whole sympathetically from “outside and above” begins to show how the values of all three of these major stages of cultural development—traditional, modern, and postmodern—are actually interdependent.⁵

This planetary view, however, also reveals how the conflicts and tensions among these three major worldview structures are also an important part of the larger cultural ecosystem in which they live. That is, to appreciate the dynamism, and thus the evolutionary potential for further growth inherent in the noosphere’s overall cultural ecosystem, we need to recognize its dialectical process of development.

Cultural Evolution’s Dialectical Process of Development

Although it can’t be conflated with biological or cosmological evolution, cultural evolution is real evolution, and as such it partakes in universal patterns of development—habits of growth—that are common to all forms of evolution. While we can identify many common patterns and processes that have shaped evolution’s overarching structure, perhaps the most fundamental process is dialectical development. Recognizing the outworking of this dialectical evolutionary process in our current historical moment provides the key to cultivating the further evolution we need.

The process of dialectical development has been framed in numerous ways. But I define it as the universal process through which tension between differentiated entities can cause transformation into more complex forms of integration. This ubiquitous evolutionary process of differentiation and integration—transcendence and inclusion—is how evolution unfolds at every level; it cannot be reduced to merely “Hegel’s dialectic.” Moreover, despite its association with Marxist materialism, dialectical development cannot be accurately equated with strict determinism. As Whitehead understood, the process by which “the many enter into complex unity” is compatible with the idea of freedom, especially in the realm of cultural evolution.

The extent to which Whitehead’s thought can be considered dialectical is open to debate.⁶ But I think I can safely claim that Teilhard’s philosophy is firmly dialectical, even though he appears not to have read much of Hegel. According to historian Richard Tarnas, for Teilhard, “cosmogenesis is a dialectical unfolding …”⁷ So without arguing the point further, I trust readers will allow me to say that recognizing the dialectical character of evolutionary development is compatible with the general spirit of Teilhard and Whitehead.

Recognizing the pattern of dialectical development in our present historical circumstances allows us to better understand the intersubjective value commitments of the progressive postmodern worldview. This worldview embraces many positive and hopeful values, but it has made its advance primarily by questioning, and in many cases militantly rejecting, the “establishment” values of modernism and traditionalism. In short, progressive postmodernism stands in antithesis to much of Western civilization.

Although it has been criticized as an oversimplification, the construct of thesis-antithesis-synthesis does reveal important features of the dialectical process. Applying this construct to our current time in history shows how postmodernity exemplifies the antithesis phase of this universal pattern. Even though each major worldview evinces aspects of all three “moments” of the dialectic within itself, the rejectionistic spirit of the progressive postmodernism points to its center of cultural gravity in the dialectical sequence. Indeed, postmodernity’s antithetical stance toward the modernist-traditionalist “thesis” is apparent in nearly all of its cultural expressions.

Therefore, if we are willing to accept the proposition that progressive postmodernism represents a kind of antithesis, this points to the next potential step in the structural sequence of noosphere emergence—a transcendent yet inclusive synthesis.

The Next Step in Noosphere Evolution: A Post-Postmodern Cultural Synthesis

The logic is simple: The progressive postmodern worldview is not the end of history. In the same way that postmodernity has emerged beyond modernity, we can reasonably anticipate that another historically significant worldview will in turn eventually emerge beyond postmodernism. And just as postmodernism arose to remedy the negative externalities of modernity, the next major worldview in the structure of noosphere emergence can find its opportunities for advance within the limitations of postmodern culture.

As with each of the worldviews we are considering, postmodernism’s limitations are tied directly to its strengths. Among progressive postmodernism’s numerous strengths is its commitment to inclusivity. Postmodernism’s expanded scope of moral concern transcends modernity’s value of “equal opportunity” by attempting to uplift those who have been previously marginalized and oppressed. Inclusivity can therefore be recognized as an important line of evolutionary growth—a line that has been followed by each major worldview in its distinct contribution to history. Traditional worldviews make their advance by going beyond kinship affiliation to include all those who believe in the same religion. Modernism’s democratic forms of government go further by including multiple religions and ethnicities within a single nation-state. And as noted, postmodern culture goes further still by including previously oppressed groups within its circle of care.

But despite its caring values, the limits of progressive postmodernism’s inclusivity can be seen in its inability to appreciate and integrate the values of modernism and traditionalism, upon which postmodern culture ultimately depends. The opportunity for further growth in inclusivity can thus be seen in a move toward integration—a higher-level synthesis—which the postmodern value frame cannot achieve due to its inherent character of antithesis. In other words, postmodern culture is not able to adequately include the full diversity of valid values and viewpoints represented by the developed world’s contemporary spectrum of cultural evolution. Recognizing the limits of progressive postmodernism accordingly illuminates the path ahead for further noosphere evolution.

A detailed description of the process through which evolutionary growth moves from antithesis to synthesis is beyond the scope of this paper. But in some ways the process is deceptively simple. As Whitehead realized, evolution can be understood as growth in the ability to experience intrinsic value. He saw this as evolution’s higher purpose. In Religion in the Making Whitehead wrote, “The purpose of God is the attainment of value in the temporal world.”⁸ Eminent process philosopher David Ray Griffin elaborated on this idea, writing: “This Whiteheadian criterion for judging evolutionary progress—greater capacity for experience that is intrinsically valuable—is positively correlated with greater capacity to include more feelings and objective data from the environment in one’s experience.”⁹

The idea that we can evolve by expanding the scope of what we can value is elegantly simple yet politically powerful. This is what a synthesis does, it expands the scope of what can be valued by moderating the preceding antithesis so as to reinclude the lost values of the original thesis, which the antithesis negated in its move toward transcendence. Hegel famously described the process of synthesis as a “negation of the negation.”

As with modernism and traditionalism, progressive postmodernism still has important work to do. So I am not suggesting that it should be vilified, discarded, or otherwise completely negated. However, America’s ongoing culture war, coupled with progressive postmodernism’s inability to build electoral majorities, points to the need for further noosphere evolution. While all three of these major worldviews may continue to evolve on their own terms, here in America we need to find a way to regain the minimal level of social solidarity necessary for a functional democracy. Yet because of its totalizing critiques and rejectionistic stance toward modernism and traditionalism, the postmodern value frame is not capable of restoring our culture’s social solidarity. Which is why we need to work for a cultural synthesis that can effectively transcend postmodernism while simultaneously carrying forward its important values, together with the values of modernism and traditionalism, in a more inclusive new whole.

Those who understand noosphere evolution, even if partially, are called to become advocates for our culture’s next evolutionary step. And as I’m arguing, if this next step is to achieve the higher-level synthesis we need, it must be effectively post-postmodern. This post-postmodern worldview, referred to within my school of thought as the “integral worldview,” seeks to advance noosphere evolution by integrating the values of all three major worldviews within a larger circle of inclusion. Indeed, in the interdependent process of dialectical development, wherein each level builds on its predecessor, the degree of our transcendence is ultimately determined by the scope of our inclusion.

As a consequence of their time in history, both Teilhard and Whitehead were culturally modernist. Yet their combined spirit transcends modernist culture by offering insights that every worldview can appreciate. In fact, Teilhard and Whitehead can both be recognized as early proponents of the integral worldview, not only because they integrated science and religion, but also because they both affirmed ongoing progress in the evolution of consciousness and culture.

By building on the combined philosophy of Teilhard and Whitehead, integral philosophy is able to see more clearly than ever before how the distinct worldviews that now compete for dominance within our contemporary political milieu actually form a larger cultural ecosystem. Once we recognize this larger system as a whole, this very recognition empowers us to undertake the crucial project of championing a new cultural synthesis. The integral philosophy behind this project accordingly aims to help the partisans of each major worldview to better appreciate the values of their political opponents, together with the larger interdependent system of values to which these worldviews belong. It is thus by working to bring about a next-level synthesis that “the many” can “become one, and increase by one,” and thereby forward the creative advance of noosphere evolution.

Endnotes

1. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (Harpers, 1959) p. 285.

2. Ian Hesketh, “What Big History misses” Aeon Magazine, December 16, 2021.

3. Alan C. Love and William C. Wimsatt, “Explaining Cultural Evolution,” in Beyond the Meme: Development and Structure in Cultural Evolution (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) p. vii.

4. Steve McIntosh, Developmental Politics: How American Can Grow Into a Better Version of Itself (Paragon House, 2020) p. 8.

5. Ibid. Chapters 2 and 4.

6. See, e.g. Charles Nussbaum, “Logic and the Metaphysics of Hegel and Whitehead” Process Studies (Vol. 15, Number 1, Spring, 1986) pp. 32-52.

7. Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind (Ballentine Books, 1991), quoted in: Hub Zwart, “Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenology of the Noosphere” in Continental Philosophy of Technoscience (Springer, 2021) pp. 207–227.

8. Alfred North Whitehead, Religion in the Making: The Lowell Lectures (Macmillan, 1927) p. 100.

9. David Ray Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (State University of New York Press, 2000) p. 301.

Reprinted from the academic anthology: Whitehead and Teilhard: From Organism to Omega, Ilia Delio and Andrew M. Davis, Eds., (Orbis Books, 2025).

Originally presented at the 2023 conference: Whitehead & Teilhard: Convergences, Divergences, and Integration