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Saturday 23 march 2.30-3.30 pm
Is it still meaningful to talk about ‘human nature’?
"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars you set in place. What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him?"
This question from Psalm 8 can be translated into an everlasting philosophical problem.
The inquiry into the truth of the human person is today particularly challenging. The psychological, sociological and neuroscientific discoveries of the last 100 years have invited us to reconsider more carefully the question of the nature of the human person.
Given the pivotal insights and contributions of physical and social sciences, we want to face, from an open philosophical perspective, the same question that the biblical author of Psalm 8 has asked: what does it mean to be ‘human'? Is it still meaningful to talk about ‘human nature’? And finally, what is a ‘person’?
speakers
Dr Daniel de Haan
Daniel D. De Haan is the Frederick Copleston Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology in the Catholic Tradition at Campion Hall and Blackfriars. He is the principal investigator of the Conceptual Clarity Concerning Human Nature project sponsored by the Templeton World Charity Foundation and hosted by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford.
Before to coming to Oxford, De Haan was a postdoctoral fellow on the neuroscience strand of the Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and the Sciences project, in the Faculty of Divinity and the Translational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge.
In 2015 De Haan received his doctorate in philosophy from the Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St Thomas, Houston, Texas and the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
Francesco Banfi
Francesco Banfi is reading for the DPhil in Medieval Philosophy at Corpus Christi College.
He previously studied at Roma Tre University in Rome, reading his undergraduate and master’s in Philosophy. His master’s thesis focused on the relation between definition and demonstration in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics II 6,7. Francesco is now working on Thomas Aquinas’ reception and the interpretation of some of Aristotle’s logical and metaphysical themes, such as real definitions essences and hylomorphism.
Whilst interested in the whole history of philosophy, in focusing on ancient and medieval thought, Francesco’s main goal is directed towards the rediscovery of a contemplative notion of nature abandoned by the main philosophical streams of modern thought.
As a matter of general philosophical interest, Francesco is also concerned in thinking more carefully about the interaction of a proper metaphysical concept of nature and essence through key notions particularly developed in the modern period such as person, subjectivity and history.