In this episode, I speak with James Madden about his book, "Mind, Matter, and Nature", about philosophy of mind, and what it means to be an embodied and an embedded person. We discuss how the loss of a sense of ourselves as embodied and embedded leads to a loss of contact with the world and ultimately to nihilism. We discuss competing visions of the person—materialism, dualism and Aristotle's and St. Thomas Aquinas' idea of Hylomorphism—a union of form and matter—and what it means for a person to lead a good life. We talk about a number of issues including trans-humanism, the idea of uploading ourselves, neuroscience, Aristotle's four causes, Bob the Chameleon, Heidegger's critique of Technology, and Aristotle's ethics as a response to Sophocles Oedipus cycle. If you are interested in what it means to be a person, you will enjoy this wide ranging episode with James Madden.
Biography
James Madden is Professor of philosophy at Benedictine University in Kansas. He is the author of Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind and a book on fitness, Ageless Athlete. He writes extensively on philosophy of mind and is working on a book on Wittgenstein and Heidegger. He is the father of 6 children and is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitor, who won the IBJJF No-Gi World Championship (Masters 4, blue belt, open weight class) in December 2019. You can learn more about his work here
Resources
MMM interview with Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor: Are We our Brains?
Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind
By Madden, James D., Madden, James
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
By Aristotle
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do
By Larson, Erik J.
The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)
By Heidegger, Martin
Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience
By Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.
Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas
By Aquinas, Saint Thomas, Anton Charles Pegis Thomas, Thomas, Anton Charles Pegis
Tactical Barbell Presents: Ageless Athlete
By Madden, Jim
By Scruton, Roger
Ep. 32: James Madden, Ph.D.: The Recovery of the Self: Embodied and Embedded Persons