Walker Trimble

Grand Canyon University, College of Humanities and Social Sciences/Honors College, Adjunct

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A 'philologist' in the broad sense of the term, I am engaged in the relationships between aesthetics, philosophy of language, theology and cognitive science. Figures as St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus Confessor, Bartṛhari, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and J. J. Gibson lead the way.

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Richard P Martin

Stanford University

Remo Caponi

University of Cologne

James Mallinson

University of Oxford

Philipp A Maas

Leipzig University (Universität Leipzig)

Audrey Truschke

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Roman Krivko

University of Vienna

Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research

Alessandro Barchiesi

New York University

Gülsüm Killi Yılmaz

Ankara University

András Zoltán

Eötvös Loránd University

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Papers by Walker Trimble

A Note on the Text

Ohio University Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2016

Seed & Law: Neuroscience and virtue ethics in Christian Anthropology

Consciousness & Matter: Mind, Brain, and Cosmos in the Dialog between Science and Theology, 2024

Ethics is often divided between choices based on rules and choices based on dispositions—so-calle... more Ethics is often divided between choices based on rules and choices based on dispositions—so-called “deontology” and “virtue ethics.” The extraordinary progress made by neuroscience toward identifying the mechanisms behind decision-making has led to the field of “neuroethics,” a field whose computationalist theoretical roots put it squarely in the rule-based camp. This has, however, resulted in a twofold conflation. First, biological processes are falsely identified with rules as a type of “process fallacy.” This then leads to the assumption that the articulation of the rule in one system, e.g., a semiotic one, maps to its articulation in another system, e.g., a biochemical one. Following Eleanor Gibson, we call this “Crypto-Cartesianism.” From a theological perspective, Crypto-Cartesianism is a false teleology that introduces a “pseudo-self” in the guise of an algorithm. Common statements such as “language is encoded in the genes” and “free will is an illusion of the brain” are party to this error. This essay and review will examine the background of this fundamentally ideological position and compare it to ethically holistic notions of the person and the brain. We argue that neurobiology on its own terms can lead us to see that choices have both deontological and aretological explanations. Furthermore, on the basis of a wide range of materials, we argue that a pre-modern concept of the person as agent, one informed by the incarnational theology of the Logos, presumes an ethical relation with, and within, the principles of a rationally ordered world. Such a perspective can account for the phenomena of attention, agency, observation, and regularities in ways relevant not just to ethics but to the foundations of positivist science.

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Providence and Dialogue: Review of "The theology of history as science: results of research" ;(2019) by Rev. Mikhail Legeev (Russian)

Труды Кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской духовной академии, 2022

Rendering as Such: Maieutics and Untranslatable Categories

Springer eBooks, 2023

Review of: "Free Will Stands When Properly Explained and Correctly Defined and Neuroscience Shows This to Be the Case

Creation Without Creationism: Toward a Theological Critique of Darwinism (Russian Translation)

Труды кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской Духовной Академии, 2021

Proponents of Darwinism regard it as a universal theory that can explain the origins and structur... more Proponents of Darwinism regard it as a universal theory that can explain the origins and structure of all biological life and behavior, including society and human consciousness. However, the theory of natural selection as it was articulated by Darwin himself, and by subsequent generations of his adherents, has been exposed to wide critique both within the field of biology and without. This article examines the basic philosophical weakness of Darwinism from a Thomistic theological perspective. The author argues that Darwinism presupposes claims about causality and identity which its own supposedly mechanistic system cannot account for. Aspiring to the laws of Newtonian physics, Darwin sought to create a system of historical explanations that take their teleology from utilitarian economics. Thus while Darwinism pretends to be an objective form of deductive empiricism, at its heart it is social theory and axiology. Hence it cannot agnostically operate alongside Christianity, but must replace it with its own ethics of indifference to mass death and competition. The author shows that the natural theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, in contrast, can account for an intelligible creation. This is because creation is a beneficent gift of its Creator and is understood through a faith that recognizes the limits to understanding while also recognizing its participation in transcendent understanding. Darwinian polemicists and their Creationist opponents alike are reliant on the positioning of all that is real within nature and thus cannot account for its fundamental purpose or intelligibility. The publication is a translation of the article “Creation Without Creationism: Toward a Theological Critique of Darwinism” by Prof. Michael Hanby published in: Communio: International Catholic Review 30, no. 4 (Winter 2003), pp. 654–694. Translation and publication permissions are generously granted by author and publishers.

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Principles and development of the Brahāmanical sūtra genre

Applied to codifications of Vedic ritual perhaps as early as the 8 C. BCE and to scriptures chant... more Applied to codifications of Vedic ritual perhaps as early as the 8 C. BCE and to scriptures chanted in the monasteries of Mediaeval Japan, the sutra (sūtra) is one of the world's most widespread genre terms. Yet a systematic examination of the genre itself in the late Vedic Brahmanical literature where it first appears has never been undertaken, despite universal notice of its importance and of the uniqueness of its style. A lack of firm chronologies, historical contextualization and an overweening interest in portraying Vedic literature as the product of caste rigidity and mystical speculation has left ancient India without an account as to the origins of its intellectual culture and of its first non-scriptural prose. Concentrating on the earliest Sūtras, this work uses a variety of sources and methods to determine the principles of this technical literature and the intellectual context at is nexus. Two basic features of Sūtras are analyzed in order to understand the genre's basis and to ascertain how these principles developed across several disciples. The first is the extraordinary manner in which many Sūtras are organized as a development of the taxonomy of earlier ritual texts. The second is formation of individual aphorisms ('sūtras') that move from temporal units in ritual to discrete extensional domains. One must then account for the scientific imperative behind such principles, even with this paucity of literary history. Analysis of India's debate culture and even comparisons with the Jewish legal tradition, where similar communities of study and exchange produced similar texts, suggest the nature of the 'speech genre' of the sūtra. It is concluded that the sūtra genre's form and aim emerged from a vibrant and endowed culture of tutelage and contest where the most perfect account of a subject was rewarded and preserved within a lineage and among a circle of experts. Such an environment is the best account of how a culture that left behind almost no physical monuments developed the Ancient World's most sophisticated models of linguistic and ritual investigation

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From Function to Surface: Phenomenology of the Thinking Organ

by the Iranian Yearbook of Phenomenology and Walker Trimble

The Iranian Political Science Associaion/Gam-e-Nou, 2024

Neuroscience and its attendant subdisciplines, including, so it supposes, philosophy, hold that t... more Neuroscience and its attendant subdisciplines, including, so it supposes, philosophy, hold that there is nothing more to self and society than what is in the brain. However, two centuries have yet to resolve the philosophical objections to such claims, much less resolved the binding problem that would link mind and brain or arrive at a general, materialist explanation of consciousness. Just as ideological and economic blinders beset this discipline, they limit philosophy to account for the nature of this 'thinking organ'-what that means and if it can even exist. Taking the work of Hegel, Heidegger, and Deleuze, and neuroscientific results, I consider the phenomenology of the Organ. I argue that understanding this object requires distinguishing concepts such as function and activity, Capacity and regulation, and surface and recognition. Results show that the ability to arrive at a thinking organ as the Organ is uncertain but worth the pursuit for the services done to science and ethics.

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“SPECIES SPECIERUM”: Late Scholastic Eucharistic Theology and the Roots of Posthumanism. Part 1: Body-Soul Dualism and the Doctrine of the Four Humours

Труды кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской Духовной Академии, 2021

Man and Machine (the Problem of Sociology and the Metaphysics of Technology

Technology and Language, 2023

In 1933, the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) published the essay 'Chelovek i Mas... more In 1933, the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) published the essay 'Chelovek i Mashina' ('Man and Machine') in a Parisian journal for Russian exiles. While the article has seen numerous translations, so far an accurate and annotated version is lacking in English. While 'Man and Machine' is an important historical raisonné of thought about technology in its time, it is also one of the first critiques of the deep importance of technology for Soviet totalitarianism. Berdyaev believes that modern civilisation puts tools in in the place of their users and that, if we do not reassess our aims in life, the advances and comforts provided by technology will lead to our destruction as human beings. Berdyaev contrasts this situation with the eschatological views of Nikolai Fedorov and the 'cosmists' who neither rejected technology nor fell into submission before it. As a 'Christian existentialist', Berdyaev holds that the highest aims of humanity are those in which we realise our place as bearers of the image of God. Technology used to this end can lead us toward our self-realisation.

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Reading Nikolai Berdyaev's 'Man and Machine'

Technology and Language, 2023

This article introduces the author's English translation of Nikolai Berdyaev's article 'Man and M... more This article introduces the author's English translation of Nikolai Berdyaev's article 'Man and Machine' ninety years after its initial publication. It appeared in the journal Put': Organ russkoi religioznoi mysli ('The Path: Organ of Russian Religious Thought'). Established in 1925, Put' was the journal of Berdyaev's own Religious-Philosophical Academy founded in exile. The journal had a free-thinking, clearly anti-Soviet bent while also feeling the pulse of European temperaments. We examine Berdyaev's work in its historical context, its references and influences, including the special role of Russian cosmism. While noting the popularising and dated character of his positions, we maintain the continued relevance of Berdyaev's argument that machines should assist humanity in achieving goals that transcend humanity rather than humans being mere agents in the progress of machines. We compare this position with the current angst over Artificial Intelligence as expressed, for example, in the works of Yuval Noah Harari who treats the tool and the human as equal agents in history. We argue, in contrast, that one should view intelligent machines as partners in progress toward transcendent goals rather than interlocutors or competitors. The prescience of Berdyaev's argument is, alas, borne out by the fact that we have lost much of a sense of what such transcendent goals for humanity might mean.

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Review of: "Free Will Stands When Properly Explained and Correctly Defined and Neuroscience Shows This to Be the Case

Livers and Mirrors: Physiology, Cosmology, and Ritual in Plato's Timaeus

While the is one of the ancient world's most influential cosmologies, its treatment of human ... more While the is one of the ancient world's most influential cosmologies, its treatment of human anatomy and physiology is often met with derision. Allmodern commentators are able to grant is that the descriptions of man and his parts are "highly ironic" or "moral allegory". Here I shall argue that an especially strange passage on the function and rôle of the liver as a "mirror" of the lower part of the soul (70-72) is not only serious but, in fact, integral to the system as a whole. This, however, requires examining the doctrine of the four humours alluded to in the text and the culture of ritual sacrifice and divination in the ancient world. These reveal three layers of meaning that fit into the ' broader cosmology: the political, medical, and ritual. As this is a cultural, and not merely literary and philosophical examination, we shall draw from a wide range of sources and conclude that the Timaeus demands of us a more corporeal dualism, that clo...

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Claiming Infinity: Tokens and spells in the foundations of the Moscow Mathematical School

The Moscow Mathematical School, led by Dmitri Egorov, made tremendous strides in the development ... more The Moscow Mathematical School, led by Dmitri Egorov, made tremendous strides in the development of set theory in the period around the Russian Revolutions. The concepts of transfinite sets and absolute infinity have long had a controversial association with religion, namely in the explicit theological statements of the founder of set theory, Georg Cantor. However, several recent studies have argued that the Moscow School was instrumentally shaped by a sect called the 'Name Worshippers';. Here we examine more precisely what the Name Worshippers meant by naming, and how their semantics might have, and might have not, shaped the views of the Moscow School. This paper is a review and severe corrective of the book Naming Infinity by Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor, yet we also have our own analysis. Examining the Name Worshippers'; semantics as defined by themselves and their opponents argues for the greater theological influence being Cantor's. However some aspects of their beliefs indicate that they tended to treat names as tokens, objects of incantation and instantiation. Finally, we show how this fascinating chapter in the history of theology and mathematics contributes to realistic versions of what contemporary neurologically-based semantics calls "meaning externalism" and a science of essences.

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Промысл и диалог: отзыв на монографию «Богословие истории как наука: опыт исследования» (2019) священника Михаила Легеева

Труды кафедры богословия СПбДА, 2022

This review article examines the second part of a trilogy devoted to the theology of history by t... more This review article examines the second part of a trilogy devoted to the theology of history by the Russian theologian Fr. Michael Legeev. This ambitious and sophisticated work has recently come under severe criticism in a review by Archpriest Georges Ashkov, who labels it a “hack-job”. While some elaboration and correction in Fr. Michael’s system is needed, we demonstrate that critics simply do not understand the nature of his project. This leads to reflection on what distinguishes the history of theology from the theology of history, the Systembildung of the latter, the role of ecclesiology and politics, and how this effort might become the type of scientific inquiry its author wishes to make it. We conclude that a patristic approach could lead to progress in the study of history in general and praise Fr. Michael for attempting to synthesize a theology of history that can not just account for the past, but for the present and, to wit, the future.

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Principles and development of the Brahamanical sutra genre

Epistemic Foraging and the Creative Process: Crawling Over Creation

Technology, Innovation and Creativity in Digital Society, 2022

The function of creation is to create, to make something that was not there before. As technologi... more The function of creation is to create, to make something that was not there before. As technological objects are themselves creations, the Modern considers that they cannot create. What if it were the case that creation were a product of a set of behaviors often associated with insight but also observed in both living and non-living things? Would this change how we understand creativity? The present paper examines the relationship between an aspect of the Free Energy Principle (FEP) – a grand theory of biology, information and brain science – and creative behavior. It is argued that the seemingly aimless activity that often surrounds insights may be a variety of “epistemic foraging” modeled by the FEP’s notion of “active inference”. An informal thought experiment is introduced to explore whether foraging can be distinguished empirically among systems with different levels of control and consciousness. Insights from the FEP are then applied to an aesthetic formula proposed in the Poetics of Aristotle. It is found that the range of variety in predicted states is more important than arbitrariness. It is speculated that sets of predictions with high relative entropy in proportion to value surrounded by other sets that compensate with lower entropy could explain the foraging features of many fixed-action patterns of behavior. Initiating related discussions about additive theories of liberty and textured consciousness, these humanitarian ruminations should be given more rigor in the future so as to be applied to modeling behavior such as play, ritual, and the arts.

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Brains Situated, Active, and Strange: Neurosurgical magnification and physicalism’s aesthetic consequences

Autonomie und Unheimlichkeit:Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie 2020

Is technological control taking the place of what appeared uncannily uncontrollable? Or is it its... more Is technological control taking the place of what appeared uncannily uncontrollable? Or is it itself becoming uncanny? Two seemingly contradictory narratives have shaped the history and theory of technology. The narrative of disenchantment describes how nature, experienced as something foreign and dangerous, was tamed by becoming scientific and mechanised. Secondly, the narrative of (re-)enchantment recounts how artefacts and technological possibilities become uncanny, especially by way of their seeming independence and by confronting us with an ‘autonomous’ logic of their own. In today's debates about self-learning, ubiquitous, invisible and opaque technologies, the uncanny moment resonates of a technology with ‘a life of its own’. Following up on the mechanisation and automation discourses of the 20th century, this contributes to the ‘demonisation’ of technology. On the one hand, technology makes the world familiar and comprehensible, e.g. by equating understanding with techni...

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Principles and development of the Brahamanical sutra genre

«SPECIES SPECIERUM»: позднее схоластическое евхаристическое богословие и источники постгуманизма. Часть 1: Дуализм тела и души и учение о темпераментах

Труды кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской Духовной Академии, 2021

Аннотация: Канон XXIII.3 Тридентского Собора (1551 г.) предает анафеме того, кто «отрицает, что в... more Аннотация: Канон XXIII.3 Тридентского Собора (1551 г.) предает анафеме того, кто «отрицает, что в досточтимом таинстве Евхаристии находится весь Христос под любым из видов [«specie»] и в каждой отделенной частичке любого из видов». Как часто бывает в истории церковного ритуала, утверждение канона было лишь богословским подкреплением уже давно существующей практики причащения мирян только Телом Христовым, а не Его пречистой Кровью. Но из формулировки о «видах», «частности», «целостности» и «жизни» Тела неожиданным образом возникло очень странное следствие. Несколько поколений католических богословов и философов горячо спорили именно о природе этих «specierum»: были ли волосы Христа живыми, были ли живыми Его ногти и, соответственно, были ли Его гуморы-кровь или желчь-проявлением Божественной воли или человеческой. В первой из двух статей мы рассмотрим предысторию этой проблемы, исследовав, что означает «дуализм тела и души». Вместо того, чтобы изучать все дискуссии о теле и душе за обширный период, мы обратимся к древней и широко распространенной медицинской доктрине четырех гуморов, которая послужит примером того, как в древности преодолевалась граница между телом и душой. История богословских и философских прений о четырех гуморах (темпераментах) показывает, насколько происходившее на Тридентском Соборе отражало философские взгляды, радикально отличавшиеся от общехристианской традиции. Для отцов Церкви душа была источником разума и, что немаловажно, жизни. Душа являлась основным агентом в отношениях с миром, а не пассивным субъектом, заключенным в ловушке тела. Мы покажем, что современный картезианский дуализм является богословски неприемлемым и приводит к ряду этических и апологетических проблем.

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A Note on the Text

Ohio University Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2016

Seed & Law: Neuroscience and virtue ethics in Christian Anthropology

Consciousness & Matter: Mind, Brain, and Cosmos in the Dialog between Science and Theology, 2024

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Providence and Dialogue: Review of "The theology of history as science: results of research" ;(2019) by Rev. Mikhail Legeev (Russian)

Труды Кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской духовной академии, 2022

Rendering as Such: Maieutics and Untranslatable Categories

Springer eBooks, 2023

Review of: "Free Will Stands When Properly Explained and Correctly Defined and Neuroscience Shows This to Be the Case

Creation Without Creationism: Toward a Theological Critique of Darwinism (Russian Translation)

Труды кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской Духовной Академии, 2021

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Principles and development of the Brahāmanical sūtra genre

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From Function to Surface: Phenomenology of the Thinking Organ

by the Iranian Yearbook of Phenomenology and Walker Trimble

The Iranian Political Science Associaion/Gam-e-Nou, 2024

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“SPECIES SPECIERUM”: Late Scholastic Eucharistic Theology and the Roots of Posthumanism. Part 1: Body-Soul Dualism and the Doctrine of the Four Humours

Труды кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской Духовной Академии, 2021

Man and Machine (the Problem of Sociology and the Metaphysics of Technology

Technology and Language, 2023

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Reading Nikolai Berdyaev's 'Man and Machine'

Technology and Language, 2023

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Review of: "Free Will Stands When Properly Explained and Correctly Defined and Neuroscience Shows This to Be the Case

Livers and Mirrors: Physiology, Cosmology, and Ritual in Plato's Timaeus

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Claiming Infinity: Tokens and spells in the foundations of the Moscow Mathematical School

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Труды кафедры богословия СПбДА, 2022

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Principles and development of the Brahamanical sutra genre

Epistemic Foraging and the Creative Process: Crawling Over Creation

Technology, Innovation and Creativity in Digital Society, 2022

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Brains Situated, Active, and Strange: Neurosurgical magnification and physicalism’s aesthetic consequences

Autonomie und Unheimlichkeit:Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie 2020

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Principles and development of the Brahamanical sutra genre

Труды кафедры богословия Санкт-Петербургской Духовной Академии, 2021

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Holism or Abstraction: Representational Conflicts in Cognitive Science

Each revolution in brain science prompts mechanistic explanations of the mind. These are inevitab... more Each revolution in brain science prompts mechanistic explanations of the mind. These are inevitably followed by a “holistic” reaction that argues against a one-to-one correspondence between a brain organ, region, or pro- cess and a cognition. From the beginning of the 20th century, imaging tech- nologies, behaviorism and, later, computational models have all been met with holistic responses from gestalt theory to cognitive science to embodied, enactive and environmental theories of cognition. Neglected in such debates so far has been the way these research cultures employ different forms of sci- entific representation. Making use of recent debate on the nature of scientific representation, this article uses research from psycholinguistics, classic works of gestalt and related theories, and embodied cognitive science to argue that gestalt-type models represent more rigorous forms of scientific representa- tion that yet have limitations in their relevance. Computational models, on the other hand, are flawed forms of representation that use hybrid forms to impose logical structure or necessity on concrete neural structures. Data in- dicate there is support for both models, so it is hoped that further research will be done to clarify the role of representation as a construct that shapes both theory and research practice.

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THEOLOGY & EDUCATION

Theology and Education, 2017

This collection of essays examines the place of theology in human and social development. Eschewi... more This collection of essays examines the place of theology in human and social development. Eschewing a sociological point of view, the authors in this volume employ the rigours of historical and philosophical analysis, often informed by a command of the Eastern Christian Fathers and the thought of 19th and 20th century Russia. Sources range from contemporary hermeneutics, psychology and theory of education to ancient and mediaeval philosophy, early modern ecclesiastical history and 19th century European historiography.
The contents of this volume should be of interest to all those engaged with theoretical questions involving education, theology, the history of philosophy and christian approaches to the development of the human person. Co-Edited by Dmitrii Shmonin and Walker Trimble

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Radical ethics under the Aegis of Neurology

Emmanuel Levinas: A Radical thinker in a Time of Crisis, 2015

‘I = my brain’ is an identity asserted and assumed more than it has ever been. ‘My mental content... more ‘I = my brain’ is an identity asserted and assumed more than it has ever been. ‘My mental contents = a location in my brain’ has never been easier to assert. The fascination with such anatomical conclusions as ‘scientists have found the location of love’ goes far beyond the reasonable interests of neurology. It is a popular mania. We will examine the motivation of this public vivisection of the self finding relevant criticism from Kant and Husserl. Yet unlike many phenomenologists, we cannot dismiss the new ‘I’ being sewn together from this inert physiognomy. Drawing from neurological sources in popular and scientific literature we will identify the ethical crises at the heart of the non-dualist self and find that it is Emmanuel Levinas who can guide us toward a radical ethics of conscious matter. Book chapter in Rita Šerpytyte, ISBN 978-609-459-670-4

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Шекспир и Сталин

YouTube video, 2021

В 1939 году, на пороге XVIII съезда ВКП(б), первого после массовой чистки сталинского террора, со... more В 1939 году, на пороге XVIII съезда ВКП(б), первого после массовой чистки сталинского террора, состоялось уникальное событие. На государственном уровне отмечался 375-й день рождения Уильяма Шекспира под лозунгом «Наша страна стала родиной Шекспира».
Как Великий Бард оказался родом не из буколического Стратфорда-на-Эйвоне, а из Москвы периода большого террора? Откуда возник этот феноменальный культ советского Шекспира? Как cтрах репрессий отражался в работе переводчиков? И чем Гамлет не угодил Сталину?
Мы попробовали разобраться в этом многослойном парадоксе, а также рассмотрим, как современные версии русского Шекспира становятся знамениями нашего времени.

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Artificial Intelligence & the Philosophy of Life

Elon Musk recently said, ‘With AI we’re summoning the demon’ – and many others have claimed that ... more Elon Musk recently said, ‘With AI we’re summoning the demon’ – and many others have claimed that complex learning systems are the greatest threat to the future of humanity. But perhaps AI has things to teach us about how networks of living and autonomous systems thrive, biological origins, creativity, and growth. Can AI give us a new philosophy of life?

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What Makes Hell More Interesting

YouTube lecture, 2022

An online lecture for a popular series: Heaven is nice, but hell seems more interesting. The torm... more An online lecture for a popular series: Heaven is nice, but hell seems more interesting. The torment might be endless, but at least you can count on some variety. Is it our broken nature that makes us seek after what is close and dirty away from what is pure and abstract? Is it the same curiosity that killed the cat? The literature and theology of the afterlife reveal rather that it is not how we imagine hell that is the problem – modern man has set himself in competition with God and hell is the place where he is his own. Yet there is a different conception of human existence, one where our dynamism as living beings is the part which best represents our closeness to the image of God, where reason is divine, and where the spice of life is life in heaven. We conclude looking at the origin of the word "transhuman" in the Paradiso of Dante, and how theology offers an alternative to our post-human present. This lecture for an online learning platform deals with philosophy, theology, transhumanism, eschatology, Gregory of Nyssa, the New Testament, Dante, Thomas Aquinas, apocryphal texts, and others.

Walker Trimble

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