Abstract

This introductory chapter to the book Towards a Philosophy of Cosmic Life: New Discussions and Interdisciplinary Views provides an overview on a multidisciplinary, multitheoretical, and transcultural dialogue among six authors from three continents. The aim of this discourse is to establish highly innovative perspectives and to explore new frontiers for the development of philosophical reflections and scientific foundations for the emergence of a common cosmic consciousness, an integral ecology, and a cooperative planetary civilization of humanity. The chapter includes brief profiles of the authors and chapter summaries. The golden thread running through the spectrum of ideas and points of view outlined here is provided by the underlying view that life is not an accidental emergence in an otherwise exanimate infinity, but an expression or manifestation of a self-unfolding cosmic life principle, namely as an implicit but central and general factor in the formation of everything.