Visions of man: Huxley vs. Dante April 13th, 2011 This is an excerpt from a talk by French philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj March 24 in Paris at an event that was part of a Vatican-sponsored initiative to create dialogue among Catholics and atheists and agnostics in Europe, called the Courtyard of the Gentiles after a section of the ancient Jewish Temple that was accessible to non-Jews. He contrasts the “trasumanar,” or openness of heaven, of Dante’s Paradiso and the “transhumanism” of the first director general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Julian Huxley. Rome journalist Sandro Magister published an...