Calvin Receives $2 Million Grant for Program with China

January 30, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Calvin has received a $2 million grant from the John Templeton
Foundation to create connections between Chinese intellectuals and the west in
the areas of science, philosophy and belief.

Contact Kelly Clark at 616-526-6421 or kclark@calvin.edu
For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/templeton-grant.htm

Western capitalism has made big inroads in China in the last two decades. But
the philosophical foundations of western society have been less explored. A
new grant to Calvin College from the John Templeton Foundation hopes to change
that.

Calvin has received $2 million from Templeton for a project called "Science,
Philosophy and Belief: A Program for Chinese Scholars." The effort will
include a three-year partnership between Calvin and the Society of Christian
Philosophers (SCP). It is being managed by the Nagel Institute for the Study
of World Christianity at Calvin.

Kelly Clark, a Calvin philosophy professor who is directing this project, says
its goal is "to produce a sophisticated ongoing conversation about philosophy,
science and belief in China that will equip scholars, strengthen teaching at
Chinese universities, and sustain and deepen this line of inquiry in China."

He says Chinese intellectuals are very interested in how philosophy, science,
morality, economics and religious belief have interacted in the West.

"The West, once regarded in China as the source of all that was exploitive and
decadent, has now become the object of great intellectual fascination," he
says. "Some of this interest in Western culture is simply intellectual
curiosity, stoked by decades of enforced isolation. One of the most powerful
drivers of this interest, however, is Chinese intellectuals' sense that their
nation urgently needs to find ways to integrate culture and provide society
with public norms so that China can withstand the enormous economic and social
changes it is now experiencing."

Joel Carpenter, director of the Nagel Institute at Calvin, agrees.

"The roots of this project," he says, "go back about 13 years to some of the
first conferences held in China by the Society of Christian Philosophers. But
really for the Chinese their interest in Western philosophy stretches back even
further. During the Cultural Revolution anything to do with the West was
purged. But now we are seeing a classic generational change with the current
rising generation of Chinese intellectuals and scholars very eager to
understand Western culture."

Contact Kelly Clark at 616-526-6421 or kclark@calvin.edu
For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/templeton-grant.htm

-end-
Received on Tue Jan 30 09:38:49 2007