The Pari Dialogues: Essays in Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science; Volume 2

by F. David Peat

This volume explores the nature of knowledge systems from the perspective of Western science, as well as from a variety of indigenous traditions. In particular, it calls into question the extreme position that assumes that Western science represents the essential truth about the cosmos with indigenous traditions being dismissed as no more than myths and stories. The preface by the book's editor, F. David Peat, ( Blackfoot A Journey Into the Native American Universe ) presents an overview of the content and arguments in the book, which include the issue of belittling traditional knowledge systems and the oppression suffered by traditional societies at the hands of colonizers; astronomy, the oldest human science, as written from a Navajo perspective, but including the views of other Native American groups; and an overview of the evolution of modern science beginning at the time of the Greeks.

380 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2014

About the author

He has worked actively as a theoretical physicist in England and Canada.

But Peat's interests expanded to include psychology, particularly that of Carl Jung, art and general aspects of culture, including that of Native America. Peat is the author of many books including a biography of David Bohm, with whom Peat collaborated, books on quantum theory and chaos theory, as well as a study of Synchronicity. Since moving to the village of Pari in Italy, Peat has created the Pari Center for New Learning.