Oxford University
A lecture by Prof. John Haldane
Monday, February 19th
7:30 PM
Blackfriars (OX1 3LY)
This lecture is free and open to the public.
Beginning in the late 1950s, and with a few exceptions, anglophone philosophers began to adopt one of two views about the nature of mind. Materialism (the mind is the brain) or Behaviourism (talk of mind is to be interpreted in terms of bodily behaviour). These views were qualified, refined, revised but in general the prevailing orthodoxies reject the idea of immateriality and certainly that of an immortal soul. Even so the trajectory of philosophical thinking has remained quite divergent. This lecture will review some of these issues and turn to consideration of two lines of thought that claim to be different from those mentioned, both linked to the thought of Wittgenstein. That of Strawson, that Persons are a special kind of subject, and that (or those) of Anscombe and Wittgenstein. The special interest of the latter in this context is that they both held to the Christian belief in a future life. This also raises the questions how are their views related to that of Aquinas, and how should his view be regarded. These various considerations will lead in turn to the broader question is some form of dualism tenable?
About the speaker:
Professor Haldane (KHS, FRSE, FRSA) is the J. Newton Rayzor Sr Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Baylor University, and Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs in the Department of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews.
He is also Chairman of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh since 1995.
Among many other books, Professor Haldane has written Reasonable Faith (Routledge, 2010), and edited “Analytical Thomism” (The Monist Vol. 80, no. 4, October 1997), Mind, Metaphysics and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions (Notre Dame, 2002), and Modern Writings on Thomism (Bristol: Thoemmes/Continuum, 2003).