historical Jesus scholarship: namely, students and faculty in the sociol-ogy and psychology of religion as well as New Testament scholars. Hisbook moves this important field of inquiry forward by focusing on howgroup psychology can be useful to biblical studies.

Philip Browning HelselBoston College

� � �rirt_1083 385..515

More Than Matter? Is There More to Life Than Molecules? KeithWard, Eerdmans, 2010 (ISBN 978-0-8028-6660-8), 224 pp., pb $20/£12.99

Keith Ward, the former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford Univer-sity, is no less a philosopher and scholar of religion than he is a theo-logian. In his latest book, he intends to speak as a philosopher and toargue for something as exotic among contemporary philosophers asidealism. This book, then, is about metaphysics – about what exists andhow it is structured. It does not read like a dry theoretical exercise,however, for it is fuelled by deeply felt concerns: What are we, really?And how do human beings fit into the world? Ward rightly claims thathumanism itself – our high valuation of the freedom and dignity ofmoral subjects – requires ‘ontological backing’, and that such backingneeds to be grounded in philosophical reasoning. Moreover, he sug-gests that the existence of human beings might even be a clue to thevery nature of the universe we inhabit.

Throughout the book, Ward proceeds by way of a playful imaginarydiscussion with his former philosophy teacher at Oxford, Gilbert Ryle,best remembered for ridiculing Cartesian dualism – the ghost in themachine – in his classic The Concept of Mind. Ryle was neither a dualist,nor a materialist; instead he wanted to defend the core humanist con-victions without having to deal with the confusion of metaphysics at all.Ward thinks this cannot be done – everyone, whether they like it or not,has certain governing beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. Onereason Ryle figures so prominently in this book is thus that he is auseful foil for Ward as he makes the case that metaphysics is indeed aworthwhile and even necessary philosophical preoccupation. Anotherreason is that Ryle denied what Ward emphatically wants to affirm,namely that there is such a thing as a private realm of consciousness;that is, that human beings (at least) have a rich inner world of thoughts,dreams, images, feelings and so on, which is real though inaccessible toothers. And he argues that this inner aspect of human lives – mind – iswhat is most valuable about them.

Reviews 385

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The first four chapters are devoted to a presentation of several dif-ferent metaphysical positions – phenomenalism, naïve realism, criticalrealism, materialism, and epiphenomenalism – the ultimate purpose ofwhich is to demonstrate that idealism in some form is indeed still aviable alternative. What does Ward mean by idealism? At its most basic,it is the view that ‘there is a reality underlying our everyday experiencewhose basic character is consciousness or mind’ (p. 30). Idealism is ofcourse more like a family of theories, and Ward discusses three particu-larly influential versions – critical idealism, absolute idealism, andprocess philosophy. Much space is devoted to Kantian critical idealism,since it is in many ways the origin of modern idealism as such. At theheart of Kant’s critical project is the idea that reality as we know it, theworld of appearances, is the result of an interaction between humanminds and things in themselves. According to Kant, reason teaches usthat we can never know what that underlying ‘noumenal’ reality is likein itself, but reason also teaches that we must assume it is there for usto interact with.

Post-Kantian philosophy, in turn, radically questioned both the notionof unknowable things in themselves and the Kantian transcendentalsubject. What is that reality which underlies the world of appearances?Philosophers who are less impressed by the Kantian limitations ontheoretical knowledge, and who take reality to be mind-like in nature,perhaps using their own experience of being conscious as a clue toultimate reality, move in the direction of absolute idealism, such as thatof Hegel. The most interesting part of the presentation of idealist alter-natives, however, is neither critical, nor absolute idealism, but White-head’s process philosophy, which is described as a pluralistic idealism,and towards which Ward himself confesses a particular sympathy.

After this broad sweep of metaphysical theories, Ward continues bylooking at the question of human personhood, defending a versionof Cartesian dualism, though with the interesting claim that this isquite compatible with a process-view of human personhood: ‘Humanpersons are primarily chains of experiences – thoughts, perceptions,feelings and sensations . . . But these chains are “owned” by continuingsubjects’ (p. 64). In other words, in spite of process philosophy’s dis-avowal of substances, Ward claims that the difference between stressingthe processes that make up a human person and stressing the continuingsubstance of mind may not run very deep. This is an intriguing argu-ment well worth considering. And this is in fact the heart of Ward’s ownproposal in this book, that we may combine the pluralistic idealism ofprocess thought with a qualified version of Cartesian dualism in orderto better understand what a human person truly is – certainly more thanmatter.

However, to say that human consciousness is more than matterleaves open the crucial question of the relationship between

Reviews386

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

consciousness and matter. In a key chapter – ‘The Place of HumanMinds in the Cosmos’ – Ward is at pains to show that his proposaldoes not suggest that consciousness is shot into the materialworld from someplace beyond it, with the tendency to denigrate thematerial world that often accompanies such a view. Rather, he seemsto suggest something like an emergentist dualism, according towhich ‘consciousness results from the natural generation of capacitiesinherent in the structure of matter itself, as it develops forms oforganized complexity over time’ (p. 87). What this requires is ofcourse a significantly enlarged understanding of matter; but thenagain, as Ward points out, this is something modern physics is alreadyproviding us with. At any rate, the argument is that philosophicalmaterialism should not be allowed to hijack science for its purposes,since a contemporary rendition of idealism is fully compatible withthe best science available, in addition to its intrinsic philosophicalplausibility.

In the following chapters, More Than Matter? contains thought-provoking discussions of a number of critical issues from the point ofview of Ward’s (sometimes slightly confusing) brand of idealism-process-dualism. He discusses the relation of brain and mind, the pos-sibility of reincarnation and disembodied existence, the enigma offreedom and agency, the relation of moral values and the inner life ofsubjects, as well as the traditional concepts of the soul. The end result isa well-rounded presentation of the often maligned metaphysical posi-tion of idealism, and a demonstration of its continued vitality andrelevance, in particular for our attempts to understand the role ofhuman beings in the wider cosmos.

More Than Matter? represents a voice that deserves to be heard in thereinvigorated debate within contemporary philosophy about the rela-tionship of consciousness to the material world. Clearly, not everyonewill be persuaded – in fact, I believe few will. But the point is rather tomake it clear that idealism can be dismissed without a hearing onlyat the price of intellectual dishonesty. The clarity with which Wardpresents rather difficult material is impressive, and makes this booksuitable for a much wider readership than merely professionalphilosophers. The tone is friendly and humoristic (albeit occasionallya little talkative), which should make it ideal for college-levelcourses. If nothing else, it is sure to inspire a discussion – and a veryuseful one.

Andreas NordlanderLund University

� � �

Reviews 387

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.