Retrieving Reformed Philosophy of Mind

Abstract

The Philosophy of Mind is an ever-burgeoning field of research, yet there are few contemporary confessionally Reformed examples of serious philosophical engagement. I argue that Herman Bavinck is a worthy candidate for theological and philosophical retrieval. I argue that while Bavinck attempted to ward off the growing popularity of materialism in his day, his own philosophical commitments provide a gateway to several versions of it. In so arguing I attempt to retrieve his insights and formulate them into a coherent structure that is both theologically serious and philosophically interesting. I argue that he provides several conceptual resources that would be of value to those committed to various non-reductive physicalist proposals such as hylemorphic animalism.