General IntroductionVincent_Willem_van_Gogh_002
– Stay tuned ‘til the end for listener feedback

Aristotelian Psychology
– What does Aristotle mean by soul?
– The soul and the body
– Dante’s interpolation
– Your undecaying mind
– The final cause of the body
– Types of souls
– Thomas’s additions

Christology and Psychology
– The Nicene Creed
– Made man that we might be made God
– A renewal of the Imago Dei
– Fallen minds
– How many wills does Christ have?

Modern Psychology and Philosophical History
– A strained relationship
– Theophrastus wonders
– Personality theory and moral philosophy
– Psychology of the person
– Science of the psyche
– The not-so-great divorce
– Behaviorism and natural science
– Personality vs. character
– Smuggling in assumptions and values

Concealed Rhetoric in Scientistic Sociology
– Collections and interpretation of facts
– The value of rhetoric
– When scientists enter politics
– State your philosophy!
– Social respect and Silicon Valley

Positive Psychology
– Post-traumatic stress disorder
– Clinical psychology and the APA
– How the tables were turned
– An overemphasis on the negative
– An explosion
– Superheroes, the virtues, and positive psychology
– Specifying a telos
– Two-thirds of an Aristotelian
– Guilt and maturity
– Basic assumptions about human nature

Tolkien and Addiction
– How is Gollum a dope fiend?
– Moving the goalposts of “my precious”
– Ego displacement
– Why Frodo can’t throw the ring away
– Sam’s trip

Our theme music this week is The Choir’s “Love Your Mind” from 1994’s Speckled Bird.

5 thoughts on “The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #133: Psychology”
  1. dgrubbs “If I wasn’t a Christian [The Silmarillion] would be my Bible.”
    I second that!

  2. I liked the examination of Christology in the history of psychology.  This certainly fueled philosophical speculation on the nature of the soul, and what it means to be a human.  It occurs to me that the burgeoning monastic tradition also produced quite a bit of speculation on spiritual and mental life.  I know there’s a number of folks in the Eastern Orthodox world examining clinical psychology and the insights of the early monastics, but I can’t recall any names.  Thanks for another solid episode.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.