Tag Archives: dualism

Mind-Body Theory

What Is Dualism?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In the previous post, philosopher J. P. Moreland explained what physicalists believe, particularly with respect to human beings.  Physicalism holds that humans are composed of nothing but matter.

Now we will see what dualists believe.  Again, we are quoting from Moreland and Habermas’s Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality.  Dualists disagree with physicalists that matter is all there is.  For dualists, there also exist mental entities.  Moreland gives three examples of mental entities:

1.  Sensations: These would include “experiences of colors, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, pains, and itches.  Sensations are individual things that occur at particular times.  I can have a sensation of red after looking in a certain direction or by closing my eyes and daydreaming.  An experience of pain will arise at a certain time, say, after I am stuck with a pin.”

Moreland continues his description of sensations:

Further, sensations are natural kinds of things that have, as their very essence, the felt quality or sensory property that makes them what they are.  Part of the very essence of a pain is the felt quality it has; part of the very essence of a red sensation is the presentation of a particular shade of color to my consciousness.  Sensations are not identical to things outside a person’s body – for instance, a feeling of pain is not the same thing as being stuck with a pin and shouting, “Ouch!”  Sensations are essentially characterized by a certain conscious feel, and thus, they presuppose consciousness for their existence and description.  If there were no conscious beings, there would be no sensations.

2. Propositional attitudes: A propositional attitude is having “a certain mental attitude toward a proposition that is part of a that-clause.  For example, one can hope, desire, fear, dread, wish, think, believe that P where P may be the proposition: ‘The Royals are a great baseball team.'”

There are at least two components to propositional attitudes:

First, there is the attitude itself.  Hopes, fears, dreads, wishes, thoughts, etc. are all different attitudes, different states of consciousness, and they are all different from each other based on their conscious feel.  A hope is a different form of consciousness from an episode of fear.  A hope that it will rain is different from a fear that it will rain.  What’s the difference?  A hope has a very different conscious feel from a fear.

Second, they all have a content or a meaning embedded in the propositional attitude – namely the propositional content of my consciousness while I am having the propositional attitude.  My hope that P differs from my hope that Q, because P and Q are different propositions or meanings in my consciousness.  If there were no conscious selves, there would be no propositional attitudes.  My hope that it will rain is different from my hope that taxes will be cut.  The contents of these hopes have quite different meanings.

3. Acts of will or purposings: “What is a purposing?  If, unknown to me, my arm is tied down and I still try to raise it, then the purposing is the “trying to bring about” the event of raising my arm.  Intentional actions are episodes of volition by conscious selves wherein and whereby they do various actions.  They are acts of will performed by conscious selves.”

So that is dualism in brief.  Our next task is to defend dualism against physicalism, and we will start that process next week by examining the nature of identity.

Mind-Body Theory

What Are the Key Concepts In the Physicalism/Dualism Debate?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Physicalism affirms the existence of the body and denies the existence of the mind or soul, while dualism affirms the existence of both the body and the soul.  Before we get into the arguments for dualism and against physicalism, we need to define some terms.

Philosopher J. P. Moreland, in the book Beyond Death, defines three key terms: substance, property, and event.  First, we look at the nature of a substance.  According to Moreland, “A substance is an entity like an apple, an acorn, a leaf, a carbon atom, a dog, or an angel.  Substances have a number of important characteristics.”

The characteristics of substances are as follows:

  1. “Substances are particular, individual things.  A substance . . . cannot be in more than one place at the same time.”
  2. “A substance is a continuant – it can change by gaining new properties and losing old ones, yet it remains the same thing throughout the change.”  For example, a leaf can change color from red to green, but it still remains the same substance, the same leaf.
  3. “Third, substances are basic, fundamental existents.  They are not in other things or had by other things.”  For example, our cat, Lily, is not in or had by something more basic than herself; she is a basic existent. 
  4. “Fourth, substances are unities of parts, properties, and capacities.”  Lily, as a substance, has properties such as grayness and fatness (we’ve had her on diet, but she’s still pretty fat).  She has parts such as four legs and a tail.  She has capacities that are not always being actualized, like the capacity to purr.  As a substance, Lily is a unity of all these things.
  5. Finally, substances have causal powers.  Lily can do things in the world, such as meowing or scratching.

The second key term is property.  “A property is an existent reality, examples of which are brownness, triangularity, hardness, wisdom, painfulness.  As with substances, properties have a number of important features.”

  1. “A property is a universal that can be in more than one thing at the same time.  Redness can be in a flag, a coat, and an apple at once.”
  2. Properties are immutable.  “When a leaf goes from green to red, the leaf changes by losing an old property and gaining a new one.  But the property of redness does not change and become the property of greenness.  Properties can come and go, but they do not change in their internal constitution or nature.”
  3. Properties are generally in or had by “other things more basic than themselves. . . . For example, redness is in the apple.  The apple has the redness.  One does not find redness existing all by itself. . . . Substances have properties; properties are had by substances.”

The third key term is event.  “Examples of events are a flash of lightning, the dropping of a ball, the having of a thought, the change of a leaf, and the continued possession of sweetness by an apple (this would be a series of events).  Events are states or changes of states of substances.  An event is the coming or going of a property in a substance at a particular time, or the continued possession of a property by a substance throughout a time.”

Now that we have substances, properties, and events clarified, we can move on to an examination of the physicalist and dualist positions.

Mind-Body Theory

Can a Rational Case Be Made for the Existence of the Soul?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Yes, it can, and I will be following the arguments of philosopher J. P. Moreland through several blog posts on this topic.  The source for this material is a book called Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, which was co-authored by Moreland and Gary Habermas. 

So how does Moreland introduce this important topic?  He first introduces us to the two major philosophical camps that have formed around the debate:

Is a human being just composed of matter – a body, a brain, and a central nervous system – or does a person also have an immaterial component called a mind or soul?  Physicalists claim we are only material beings; dualists claim we are composed of both body and soul.  This is a fundamental difference.

What are the practical implications of these two points of view for life after death?   

If we are simply material beings, then when our bodies die, we die because we are our bodies, nothing more, nothing less.  On the other hand, if dualism is true, then we are both bodies and souls.  In this case, with the destruction of the former, it could be true that we continue to exist in a disembodied state indefinitely, or, according to Christianity, while awaiting a new, resurrected body.

Since the soul is something that we cannot see, some people doubt that a rational case can be made for it.  They believe that the only way to believe in the existence of the soul is through blind faith or appeal to revelation.  This viewpoint has even crept into the church.  What ideas have entered our culture to make us think this way about the soul?

Moreland concurs with the philosopher John Hick that strict empiricism and scientism are at the root of our modern skepticism of the existence of the soul.  Strict empiricism is the idea that “something can be a proper object of knowledge if and only if it can be verified with one or more of the five senses.  Seeing is believing, and since the soul appears to be embarrassingly invisible, then we must remain agnostic about its existence.”

Scientism is the belief that “science is the measure of all things.  A belief is true and reasonable only if it can be tested scientifically – observed, measured, quantified, and so forth.  But here again, the soul does not appear to be an entity that the so-called ideal sciences, physics and chemistry, can quantify and measure.”

But, Moreland argues, in spite of  “the cultural bias toward empiricism and scientism, we believe a very strong case can be made for dualism.”  Indeed, a strong rational case can be made for the existence of the immaterial soul.

In subsequent blog posts, we will explore Moreland’s arguments for dualism and against physicalism.  I hope you’ll stay with me while we dig into this important topic.