In the modern period from Descartes to WWI, western Christian theism was thought to depend on a transcendent account of human nature, which was repeatedly challenged by materialists and naturalists, in the context of successive theories of physics: this history sets the background for developments in philosophical theology in the contemporary period. This unit examines key debates between what would be considered transcendent and reductionist accounts of the human person in the 17th–19th centuries, highlighting the resilience of transcendent accounts. It includes Descartes’ arguments for an immaterial soul, Locke and ‘thinking matter’, Ralph Cudworth's coinage of ‘consciousness’ (1678), the Newtonian theologian Samuel Clarke's correspondence with the materialist Anthony Collins (1706–17), the anti-materialist philosophies of mind of the Jesuit physicist Roger Boscovich (1757), the materialist theism of Joseph Priestley (1777), and the Evangelical Christians Maxwell and Faraday, the dispute between philosophical idealist T. H. Green and the positivist and naturalist G. H. Lewes (1878–85), and ending with the expansive taxonomy of philosophies of mind in C. D. Broad's The Mind and its Place in Nature (1925). Students will also be introduced to the primary working tools of contemporary research in early modern and 19th-century philosophy.
Unit code: AP3163C
Unit status: Approved (Major revision)
Points: 18.0
Unit level: Undergraduate Level 3
Unit discipline: Philosophy
Proposing College: Catholic Theological College
Show when this unit is running1. | Analyse the selected primary texts carefully in relation to their purpose and historical context, and identify their basic positions on human nature |
2. | Critically explain the theories, terminology and arguments studied in the unit |
3. | Critically appraise the theories and arguments studied in the unit |
4. | Narrate the outlines of the historical sequence of major encounters between philosophical naturalists and theologians and other defenders of human transcendence throughout the early modern period |
5. | Characterise the material studied in relation to the wider framework of key philosophical positions and ideas in the Christian tradition (e.g. faith and reason, anti-reductionism, human person, nature) |
One unit of philosophy at second level
Lectures, seminars, tutorials. When taught online asynchronously, the tutorial/seminar component may be replaced by guided reading exercises.
Type | Description | Word count | Weight (%) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Variant 1 | ||||||||
Essay | 2000 | 40.0 | ||||||
Essay | 2500 | 60.0 | ||||||
Variant 2 | ||||||||
Essay | 4500 | 100.0 | ||||||
Variant 3 | ||||||||
Report | The report will comprise various parts answering questions provided earlier. |
2000 | 40.0 | |||||
Essay | 2500 | 60.0 |
Unit approved for the University of Divinity by Prof Albert Haddad on 28 Jul, 2025
Unit record last updated: 2025-07-28 09:21:46 +1000