They are seeking what has been called post-modern paradigms for «an open secular democratic culture» within the framework
of a public philosophy (Walter Lippman) or Civil Religion (Robert Bellah) or a new
genuine realistic humanism or at least a body
of insights about the
nature of being and becoming human, evolved through dialogue among renascent religions, secularist ideologies including the philosophies
of the tragic dimension
of existence and disciplines
of social and human
sciences which have opened themselves to each other in the context
of their common sense
of historical responsibility and common human destiny.
We are passing through a great cultural change in which the idea, long dominant in
science, that chance is «only a word for our ignorance
of causes» is being replaced by the view that the real laws
of nature are probabilistic and allow for aspects
of genuine chance.