Dualist Objections & Brief Responses

argument biannual philosophical journal

Substance dualism has received much attention from philosophers and theologians in contemporary literature. Whilst it may have been fashionable in the recent past to dismiss substance dualism as an unviable and academically absurd position to hold, this is no longer the case. My contention is not so much the merits of substance dualism in general, but a more specified variation of substance dualism. My specific contribution to the literature in this article is that I argue for the viability of pure substance dualism as a more satisfactory option in contrast to compound or composite varieties of substance dualism. I put forth one argument and tease out the implications that make compound dualism less than satisfactory. I conclude that, minimally, more work is required on compound variations of dualism to make it a more appealing and a philosophically satisfactory option. KEYWORDS I-concept, soul, substance dualism, pure, compound As of late, there has been a renaissance in the contemporary literature exploring substance dualism as a viable philosophical anthropology. 1 Given the recent discussion, it is simply not responsible to dismiss substance dualism as it has been fashionable to do in the recent past. 2 My contention here is not so much

Roczniki Filozoficzne, 2021

I argue in this essay that Richard Swinburne’s revised version of Descartes’ argument in chapter 5 of his Are We Bodies or Souls? does not quite get him to the conclusion that he requires, but that a modified version of his treatment of personal identity will do the trick. I will also look critically at his argument against epiphenomenalism, where, once again, I share his conclusion but have reservations about the argument.

A common problem with arguments for substance dualism is that they rely on modal premises that are only supported by dubious intuitions. This results in the argument having a narrow scope—only those who already hold the needed intuition will find it to be convincing. In this paper, I try to remedy this situation by constructing a new modal argument whose key premise is empirically supported. I begin by formulating the physicalist thesis and make clear its commitments. Next I explicate the notions of reduction and substance. After this, I argue that Twin Earth—a physical duplicate of Earth (including its history and its inhabitants) is possible and that this possibility is empirically supported. I finish by showing that the possibility of Twin Earth entails that selves cannot be reduced and are not supervenient, and that this entails that they are non-physical.

AUSS, 2019

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2012

Events are the instantiations of properties in substances at times. A full history of the world must include, as well as physical events, mental events (ones to which the substance involved has privileged access) and mental substances (ones to the existence of which the substance has privileged access), and, among the latter, pure mental substances (ones which do not include a physical substance as an essential part). Humans are pure mental substances. An argument for this is that it seems conceivable that I could exist without my body. An objection to this argument is that 'I' refers to my body, and so what seems conceivable is not metaphysically possible. My response to this objection is that 'I' is an informative designator and so necessarily we know to what it refers, and it does not refer to my body.

Philosophia

This paper argues that a certain kind of substance dualism can adopt the ‘Compatibilist’ solution to the problem of causal exclusion. After sketching a non-Cartesian substance dualism akin to E.J. Lowe’s account (e.g. Lowe 2006, 2008) and considering its shortcomings with respect to mental causation in section one, section two outlines an alternative account of mental causation and argues that this account solves the exclusion problem. Finally, section three considers a challenge to the proposed solution. With the exception of Lowe’s efforts (1992, 2003, 2006, 2008), very little in defense of substance dualist mental causation is to be found in the recent philosophical literature.

International Philosophical Quarterly, 2023

Many contemporary philosophers of mind disagree with substance dualism, saying that despite the failure of physical theories of mind, substance dualism cannot be advocated, because it faces more serious problems than physical theories, lacking compatibility with philosophical arguments and scientific evidence. Regardless of the validity of the arguments in support of substance dualism, it is demonstrated in this article that this theory is coherent, with no philosophical or scientific problems. The main arguments of opponents of substance dualism are explained and criticized in this respect. Based on this, it becomes clear that the interaction of soul and body has a reasonable philosophical explanation, the problem of the pairing of soul and body, although it may not have a scientific explanation, it has a philosophical and theological solution, the principle of the physical causal closure lacks conclusive reasons and cannot reject the existence of the soul, the existence of the soul does not contradict the theory of evolution, the dependence of the soul on the brain is compatible with its independence, and finally, the principle of simplicity does not make any problem for accepting the substance dualism.

Consciousness is often taken to be an impediment to materialism and to provide a motivation for some form of dualism. Although contemporary arguments for dualism typically focus on the qualitative character of consciousness, traditional arguments for dualism often appealed to the unity of consciousness. In the early modern period one can find unity of consciousness arguments in the writings of Descartes and Leibniz, and in the recent literature they have been defended by David Barnett, William Hasker, and Richard Swinburne (among others). The idea that the unity of consciousness is an impediment to materialism—and by the same token supports dualism—clearly has a deep and abiding appeal. This paper argue that that appeal is not warranted.

Elenchus, 2016

The purpose of this paper is to argue in for substance dualism originally proposed by Renee Descartes. In this paper I will examine multiple arguments for this view, some strong critiques of these arguments, and a put forward a substantive reply in the hopes of demonstrating that these critiques are not considerable or damaging to the theory as a whole. Furthermore, I accept and am working from the foundation of arguments proposed by David Chalmers, who has philosophically demonstrated adequately (in my mind) the positions of predicate and property dualism.