Why Would a Biologist Believe in the Soul? | Professor Jonathan Buttaci

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Jonathan Buttaci, examines the idea of the soul from a biological perspective, drawing on Aristotle's comprehensive treatment of the soul as a principle of life for all living things. He challenges the modern scientific view, exemplified by James Watson's statement that life is simply a matter of chemistry, and instead suggests that the soul can be understood as a non-magical, non-mystical concept within biology.

This lecture was given on April 10th, 2023, at Indiana University.

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Speaker Bio: Dr. Jonathan Buttaci is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America. He came to CUA in 2016 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Buttaci’s research focuses on accounts of mind and the soul in ancient Greek thought, in particular Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, learning, and scientific discovery. He is also interested more generally in the interplay between ancient Greek science, philosophy, and literature.

Transcript

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0:18.9	St. Thomas Aquinas. You'll study the ancient and medieval
0:22.4	intellectual tradition of Rome, live with like-minded young men and women steps from the Coliseum,
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0:48.7	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual
0:54.0	tradition in the
0:54.8	university, the church, and the wider public square. The lectures on this podcast are
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1:04.7	more and to attend these events visit us at to mysticinstitute.org.
1:11.0	Giving a lecture for the Dom domestic institute is always a challenge.
1:15.7	The audience can vary widely.
1:18.8	Some to mystic institute regulars are just beginning their encounter with St. Thomas.
1:22.9	I've given this talk before, and people have just come in out of the biology department,
1:26.9	and they want to hear some quack talk about the soul and they don't even know who Thomas Aquinas is.
1:32.8	Other people are spending their days reading Thomas Aquinas in Latin. So my hope is that we'll
1:40.2	have some time in the Q&A to bridge whatever gap there might be in the room here tonight.
1:47.3	So I'm going to begin with a frame and a shift of frame when we talk about the soul.
1:53.7	My aim is to consider and maybe even to begin to understand why someone would ever regard the soul as a biological concept, which is to say an
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