Aristotelian Arguments for Immaterial Powers: Actual Problems And Potential Solutions

This lecture was given on 16 January 2024 by Dr. Daniel DeHaan (University of Oxford) as part of the Science & Religion Online series "Immateriality in the Age of Science." For more videos like this one or to learn more about the Science & Religion project please visit: angelicum.it/T....
Dr Daniel D. De Haan is the Frederick Copleston Senior Research Fellow & Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology in the Catholic Tradition at Blackfriars and Campion Hall, Oxford University. His research focuses on philosophical anthropology, philosophy of mind and neuroscience, moral psychology, and the metaphysics of hylomorphism. He is the author of Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing (Brill, 2020) and “A Heuristic for Thomist Philosophical Anthropology: Integrating Commonsense, Experiential, Experimental, and Metaphysical Psychologies,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2022.
2023-24 Online Series Description:
One source of tension that people find between science and religion is that the former focuses on material reality while the latter invokes and makes claims about spiritual realities of an immaterial nature. To some, the lack of scientific evidence for spiritual realities make them questionable at best, and nonsensical at worst. This online series will explore natural arguments for the existence of spiritual realities, namely, God, angels, and the human soul. Primarily philosophical in nature, these talks will look at both classical and contemporary defenses of the immaterial. By providing reasonable arguments for the existence of a spiritual order, we can deepen our vision of reality. The beauty and complexity of the physical order that science provides can be placed in harmony with the broader reality physical reflection and revelation provide.