Keynote presenter: Nancey Murphy

Dates:  August 2011

Venue: Various in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Bathurst

Follow the links for details...

Adelaide - 17 August

Melbourne - 19 August

Canberra - 20 August

Bathurst - 21 August

Sydney - 23 August

Brisbane - 24 August

Hobart - 25 August

 
 
Abstract: “Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?
Ten years ago I gave two lectures in Adelaide on “Why Christians Should Be Physicalists” and “How Physicalists Can Avoid Being Reductionists.” This lecture will be a follow-on to that program. I’ll briefly overview the justifications for a physicalist (as opposed to dualist) theory of human nature, but then focus on the work I’ve done in the meantime, showing why neurobiological reductionism fails. That is, due to our complex neural systems, informed by culture, we are able to transcend deterministic brain processes, allowing for genuine rationality, responsibility, and spirituality. I shall focus in my argument on the resources of the new science of complex adaptive systems theory.
 

About our presenter:

Nancey Murphy is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. She received the B.A. from Creighton University (philosophy and psychology) in 1973, the Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley (philosophy of science) in 1980, and the Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (theology) in 1987.

Her first book, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Cornell, 1990) won the American Academy of Religion award for excellence. She is author of nine other books, including Anglo-American Postmodernity: Philosophical Perspectives on Science, Religion, and Ethics (Westview, 1997); and On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (with G.F.R Ellis, Fortress, 1996). Her most recent books are Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge, 2006); and (co-authored with Warren Brown) Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (Oxford, 2007)

She has co-edited eleven volumes, including (with L. Schultz and R.J. Russell, Brill 2009) Philosophy, Science, and Divine Action; (with G.F.R. Ellis and T. O’Connor, Springer, 2009) Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will, Springer; and (with W. R. Stoeger, Oxford, 2007) Evolution and Emergence: Systems, Organisms, Persons.

Her research interests focus on the role of modern and postmodern philosophy in shaping Christian theology, on relations between theology and science, and on relations among philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and Christian anthropology.

To read more about Nancey click here.