Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: a visionary in controversy

Teilhard de Chardin developed an evolutionary vision of our planetary future, currently developing from a sphere of life, or biosphere towards a sphere of mind, or noosphere. As a visionary, Teilhard was not only on the brink of formulating the internet, but he also anticipated current academic efforts to understand globalization, as well as human, cultural and technological evolution. However, his ideas are sources of enduring controversies in both scientific and theological circles. Here I uncover some of the core reasons why his ways of thinking and writing are often problematic, and propose a way forward. This note aims to introduce Teilhard’s central article about the noosphere (The Formation of the Noosphere, 1947), but can also be read as an independent introduction to Teilhard’s system of thought. A detailed exegesis of Teilhard’s article is available as a supplementary document.