Aykut Alper YILMAZ

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aykut Alper YILMAZ is a scholar in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Sciences at Ankara Social Sciences University. His work bridges the Philosophy of Religion and Philosophy of Mind, focusing on the intersections of theological and philosophical frameworks with concepts like personal identity, free will, human materiality, and consciousness.

• PhD in Philosophy of Religion (2020), Master's in Philosophy of Religion (2015), both from Ankara University.
• Current Associate Professor at the Faculty of Theology, Ankara Social Sciences University, since 2024.

Yılmaz investigates the philosophical viability of materialism against traditional dualist views in theistic traditions. His publications include two books: İnsan Nedir? Teistik Materyalizmin İmkânı (What is Human? The Possibility of Theistic Materialism, 2022) and Düşünüyorum! Öyleyse Bir Ruhum Var (I Think! Therefore I Have a Soul, 2025), addressing mind-body duality and theological implications.

His recent articles explore topics such as:

• Problem of Evil and divine attributes (2024)
• Simulation Hypothesis in a multiverse context (2023)
• Split-Brain Cases as materialist arguments (2022)
• Al-Ghazali’s Soul Theories (2021)

Yılmaz has also presented at international conferences, including the 2022 Metaverse and Religion Symposium and the 2024 Turkey Social Sciences Symposium. He supervised a Master's thesis on John Martin Fischer’s views on divine foreknowledge and free will and holds a TÜBİTAK 2219 research grant for work on "The Nature of Consciousness in Naturalism and Theism" (2024).