Fall 2013/Pasadena
PH835/535
Murphy
PH835/535: SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY. Nancey Murphy.
DESCRIPTION: This is a 6-unit seminar for doctoral students, also offered at the 500-level as a 4-unit course open to a limited number of advanced master’s students. This course considers the topic of human nature from the perspectives of Christian theology and the Bible, philosophy of mind, and science. The thesis of the course is that a nonreductive physicalist account (as opposed to both dualism and reductive materialism) is most consistent with these three types of sources.
SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: Increasing awareness of the ability of the cognitive neurosciences to explain capacities that have been traditionally attributed to the mind or soul is taken by some to entail the falsification of religious claims. Teachers and pastors in the church need to be aware of the fact that body-soul dualism is not an essential teaching of Christianity. Increasingly, also, both philosophers and scientists are advocating a reductionist form of physicalism that would deny “higher” human capacities such as morality, free will, and religious awareness. Therefore teachers in the church also need to understand how to argue for a nonreductive form of physicalism.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) knowledge: to become familiar with recent developments in concepts of human nature from philosophy, biology, and the Christian tradition; (2) skills: to improve skills in close reading of philosophical texts, reasoning, and academic writing; (3) attitudes: to increase confidence in the reconcilability of Christian teaching with the best of current scholarship in science and philosophy, and to increase appreciation for other scholars' attempts to address difficult intellectual problems, even when their conclusions are different from those of the student.
COURSE FORMAT: The class will meet weekly for three-hour sessions, with class time divided between brief lectures and discussion of the readings.
REQUIRED READING:
Green, Joel. Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. Baker, 2008. ISBN: 978-0801035951, Pub. Price $24.00 [240 pp.].
Green, Joel, ed. In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem, 2nd Ed. InterVarsity Press, 2005. ISBN: 978-1608994731, Pub. Price $23.00 [196 pp.].
Murphy, Nancey, and Warren S. Brown. Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neuro-biological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will. Oxford, 2007. 978-0199568239, Pub. Price $35.00 [352 pp.].
Scott, Alwyn. Stairway to the Mind: The Controversial New Science of Consciousness. Springer, 1995. ISBN: 978- 0387943817, Pub. Price $27.00 [187 pp.].
ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENTS:
Careful reading of texts; regular attendance; class participation.
PhD and ThM students: 20-25 page paper, due at the end of the term (70% of grade).
MA/MDiv students: 15-page paper due at end of term (70%) and two or three 5-page papers (30% of grade).
At the first class session we will work out plans for short written responses to the readings (30%).
PREREQUISITES: For MA and MDiv students, permission of advisor (3.7 GPA and previous course in philosophy).
RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: For MA students, elective (however, students with an undergraduate major in philosophy may petition to have this course fulfill their PHIL requirement.) For CATS students, with the permission of their mentors, theology students may count this course as a theology seminar and shift their paper topics in a more theological direction.
FINAL EXAMINATION: None.