El ser humano y su responsabilidad por la evolución desde la perspectiva de V. I. Vernadskiy y P. Teilhard de Chardin

Abstract

The objective of the article is, in the light of current scientific knowledge about evolution, to reflect on the role of the human being and his responsibility for evolution as thought by two contemporaries and eminent representatives of 20th century science and philosophy: the geologist and representative of the so-called «Russian cosmism» V. I. Vernadskiy, and the French palaeontologist, philosopher and theologian P. Teilhard de Chardin. Both thinkers were convinced that the universe and humanity presented an inseparable whole; both, albeit from different approaches, considered the human being as a central cosmic phenomenon that is playing a cosmic role; as a force that significantly influences the further evolution of the world. Vernadskiy adopted the term «noosphere», the authorship of which belongs to Teilhard, but deferred its meaning to the geological realm where it meant an integral geological envelope of the planet as a result of human cultural and technical activities influencing natural phenomena and processes. On the other hand, Teilhard’s conception of the noosphere, his vision of the evolution of the universe and the human role in it are characterised not only by their natural-scientific nature, but also by their philosophical-theological nature.