Evangelical Philosophical Society Conference 2010 - November 18-20

Sessions and Tracks

Reason Cannot be Located in a Materialist World

Any satisfactory account of human beings must locate human reasoning, by showing how it arises from the account?s underlying ontology (its theory of what exists). For materialism to be successful, human reasoning must be located in a world consisting of particles and undirected forces. The so-called "argument from reason" is a family of arguments designed to show that materialism cannot satisfy this demand. Most fundamentally, materialism fails because rational deliberation presupposes the existence of persistent, unified selves with libertarian free will. This requires an ontology of substantial agent causes, characterized by active power, teleology and downward causation, none of which can plausibly be located in a materialist world. Reason itself also has a number of characteristics (including intentionality, teleology, normativity and prescriptivity) that do not reduce to materialist categories. Finally, materialist attempts to explain human reasoning by appeal to Darwinian evolution imply that our reason cannot be trusted, especially in science and philosophy. Moreover, while not the only alternative to materialism, Judeo-Christian Theism is well-equipped to locate human reasoning because the ontology of human reasoning is exemplified by God, and therefore implausible materialist reductions of this ontology are not required. The argument from reason can be developed into a defense of scripture?s claim that human beings are made in the image of God.

Presenting at this session:

• Dr. Angus Menuge - Concordia University

This is part of Breakout Sessions: Friday Evening.

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