(1881–1955)
French Jesuit, palaeontologist, and philosopher of nature. His principal work, Le Phénomène humain (completed 1946, published 1955, trs. as The Phenomenon of Man, 1959), espouses a synthesis of science and religion, seeing the universe as a system evolving from stage to stage towards higher forms of consciousness, aimed at an eventual unity with God. The vision has philosophical roots in Bergson . Although influential in its time, its claims to rational respectability were exploded by the biologist Peter Medawar in Mind, 1961.
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.