521.
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Angus J. L. Menuge
Neuroscience, Rationality, and Free Will:
A Critique of John Searle’s Libertarian Naturalism
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John Searle claims that reasoning requires libertarian free will. He hopes this can be reconciled with a naturalistic neuroscience through a sophisticated theory of emergence, which includes indeterminism (the brain’s state is not sufficient to determine its next state), and topdown causation (higher-level features of the brain can act back on its microlevel features). This is allegedly naturalistic because each mental state is causally reducible to a realizing neuronal state. I argue that Searle’s theory fails to overcome four main problems (the location, exclusion, epiphenomenalism, and substantial selves problems) and cannot account for reasoning without implicit appeal to nonnaturalistic entities.
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522.
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Eric LaRock
From Biological Naturalism to Emergent Subject Dualism
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I argue (1) that Searle’s causal reductive stance about mental causation is unwarranted on evolutionary, logical, and neuroscientific grounds; and (2) that his theory of weak emergence, called biological naturalism, fails to provide a satisfactory account of objectual unity and subject unity. Finally I propose a stronger variety of emergence called emergent subject dualism (ESD) to fill the gaps in Searle’s account, and support ESD on grounds of recent evidence in neuroscience. Hence I show how it is possible, if not also theoretically preferable, to go from Searle’s biological naturalism to emergent subject dualism.
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523.
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John M. DePoe
RoboMary, Blue Banana Tricks, and the Metaphysics of Consciousness:
A Critique of Daniel Dennett’s Apology for Physicalism
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Daniel Dennett has argued that consciousness can be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of physical entities and processes. In some of his most recent publications, he has made this case by casting doubts on purely conceptual thought experiments and proposing his own thought experiments to “pump” the intuition that consciousness can be physical. In this paper, I summarize Dennett’s recent defenses of physicalism, followed by a careful critique of his position. The critique presses two flaws in Dennett’s defense of physicalism. First, I rebut his case against the traditional conceptual arguments against physicalism. Second, I present some empirical grounds (empirical scientific findings on blind sight and tactile vision substitute systems) for thinking that a crucial move in the argument against physicalism is well-supported. For someone, like Dennett, who finds conceptual arguments dubious, the empirical findings make it exceptionally difficult to deny the antiphysicalist argument.
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524.
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J. P. Moreland
Mental vs. Top-Down Causation: Sic et Non:
Why Top-Down Causation Does Not Support Mental Causation
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I criticize the view that top-down causation is a proper model for depicting and justifying belief in mental causation. When properly interpreted, I believe that there are no clear examples of top-down causation, and there is a persuasive case against it. In order to defend these claims, I, first, clarify three preliminary considerations; second, undermine alleged examples of top-down causation; third, present a case for why there is no top-down mental causation; fourth, explain an important option for moving forward in preserving what we all know to be the case—that mental causation is real.
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525.
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Anthony J. Rudd
Bodily Subjectivity and the Mind-Body Problem
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In this essay I argue that the traditional mind-body problem, which seems intractable in its own terms, could be helpfully reconfigured by drawing on insights from the Phenomenological tradition concerning the “body-subject” or “lived body.” Rather than attempting to explain how consciousness relates to the body as understood by the natural sciences, the Phenomenologists concentrate on elucidating the first-person sense that we have of our own bodies in ordinary, prescientific existence. After surveying the traditional mind-body problem in section 1, I introduce the Phenomenological account of embodied subjectivity in section 2. In the remainder of the essay I discuss two important issues raised by this account. First, in section 3, I consider how we can relate our everyday sense of ourselves as embodied subjects to the scientific understanding of the human body—what we might call the “body-body problem.” I argue that, in any case, the latter understanding cannot coherently be supposed to undermine or debunk the former. Secondly, in section 4, I consider whether the Phenomenological stress on the bodily nature of subjectivity allows any room for the notion of disembodied existence.
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526.
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Douglas Groothuis
Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Beliefs
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527.
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Alvin Plantinga
Response to William Lane Craig’s Review of Where the Conflict Really Lies:
Science, Religion, and Naturalism
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I try to clear up a couple of misunderstandings in William Craig’s review (misunderstandings due, perhaps, to expository inadequacy on my part). The first has to do with the difference between what I call “Historical Biblical Criticism” and historical scholarship. I claim there is conflict between the first and Christian belief; I don’t for a moment think there is conflict between historical scholarship and Christian belief. The second has to do with Platonism, theism and causality. I point out that theism has the resources to see abstract objects as like divine thoughts, in which case they are not causally isolated; this offers a reply to Paul Benacerraf’s suggestion that if, as on Platonism, abstract objects are causally isolated from everything, then there is no way in which we could come to know them or anything about them.
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528.
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Angus J. L. Menuge
Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality: Testing Religious Truth Claims
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529.
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Philosophia Christi:
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David Baggett
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
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530.
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Philosophia Christi:
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Nathan D. Shannon
God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness
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531.
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Ross Parker
Obstacles to Divine Revelation: God and the Reorientation of Human Reason
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532.
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Christopher R. Brewer
The Face of God: The Gifford Lectures 2010
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533.
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News and Announcements
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534.
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William Hasker
Reply to My Friendly Critics
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535.
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Craig J. Hazen
Editor’s Introduction
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536.
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Philosophia Christi:
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Keith E. Yandell
Mind-Fields and the Siren Song of Reason
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537.
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Stewart C. Goetz
Questions about Emergent Dualism
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538.
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Philosophia Christi:
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Robert A. Larmer
Christian Anthropology:
Saving the Soul?
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539.
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Philosophia Christi:
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William Hasker
Book Symposium on The Emergent Self:
A Précis by the Author
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540.
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Nancey Murphy
Giving the Nonreductive Physicalist Her Due:
A Response to Hasker’s The Emergent Self
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