Aware: Dualism and the onus of proof John S. Wilkins, 2 Nov 20232 Nov 2023 In which I discuss animal breath… One is often told or reads that the natural assumption of human cultures more or less universally is that humanity is composed of two parts – the body and the spirit. But I wonder if this is actually the case. There is evidence of early religions and philosophies being effectively materialistic, in that even if they allowed resurrection the body needed to be reconstituted first (e.g., Ezekiel 37, which is probably a parable for Israel itself). Qoheleth, or Ecclesiastes in the Christian tradition, is explicitly monistic: I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the human spirit goes upwards and the spirit of animals goes downwards to the earth? (3:18-21) To read more, subscribe Share this:MastodonPrintEmailMoreMeWeRedditShare on TumblrPocket Related Epistemology Metaphysics Philosophy
New publications 25 Aug 201225 Aug 2012 I have added some under-review drafts of my papers to the PhilPapers archive: Essentialism in Biology. Essentialism in philosophy is the position that things, especially kinds of things, have essences, or sets of properties, that all members of the kind must have, and the combination of which only members of the… Share this:MastodonPrintEmailMoreMeWeRedditShare on TumblrPocket Read More
But, this is exactly right! 17 Aug 201117 Aug 2011 This is why philosophers should only have parrots, actually. Share this:MastodonPrintEmailMoreMeWeRedditShare on TumblrPocket Read More
Atheism, agnosticism and theism: the landscape, part 1 15 Jul 201125 Jul 2011 In the Socrates Café (Sydney) talk based on my paper “Could God have set up Darwinian Accidents?”, I addressed about 70 people, only a couple of whom were philosophers (hi Rachel, hi Tim). I like doing these talks, because they allow me to make what is otherwise fairly dry technical… Share this:MastodonPrintEmailMoreMeWeRedditShare on TumblrPocket Read More