Saturday, February 26, 2011

Martin on the relation of mind to brain

"the latest reduction claims that 'science' has 'explained' inspiration through observation of 'events' lighting up in particular parts of the brain.  I can't see any significance attaching to such a claim:  did the same kind of brain event accompany the composition of Beethoven's Minuet in G as accompanied the Benedictus of the Mass in D?  These kinds of explanation ignore or do not even begin to understand all the different levels of scientific intentionality, with their appropriate and distinctive methodologies, up to the level of the phenomenological enquiry into the structures of meaning and being, and the sciences of meaning and being."

David Martin as interviewed by Rupert Shortt in God's advocates:  Christian thinkers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2005), 161.

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