Tag Archives: Beyond Death

Mind-Body Theory

What Is Physicalism?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In the previous post, we explained what substances, properties, and events are.  Now it is time to use those terms to explain what physicalists believe about human beings.  Philosopher J. P. Moreland explains below:

According to physicalism, a human being is merely a physical entity.  The only things that exist are physical substances, properties, and events.  When it comes to humans, the physical substance is the material body, especially the parts called the brain and central nervous system.  The physical substance called the brain has physical properties, such as a certain weight, volume, size, electrical activity, chemical composition, and so forth.

As far as human beings go, physicalists hold that they are physical substances with physical properties.  But what about events?  Are they also physical?

There are also physical events that occur in the brain.  For example, the brain contains a number of elongated cells that carry various impulses.  These cells are called neurons.  Various neurons make contact with other neurons through connections or points of contact called synapses.  C-fibers are certain types of neurons that innervate the skin (supply the skin with nerves) and carry pain impulses.  So when someone has an occasion of pain or an occurrence of a thought, physicalists hold that these are merely physical events – events where certain C-fibers are firing or certain electrical and chemical events are happening in the brain and central nervous system.

Are you getting the idea?  Everything about human beings can be reduced to physical substances, properties, and events.  You might be wondering how physicalists explain our thoughts, emotions, and pains.  Are these also physical?  Yes, they are.  According to Moreland,

My conscious mental life of thoughts, emotions, and pain are nothing but physical events in my brain and nervous system.  The neurophysiologist can, in principle, describe these events solely in terms of C-fibers, neurons, and the chemical and physical properties of the brain.

For the physicalist, a human being is 100% composed of matter, and nothing else.  There is a further crucial point that needs to be made about matter:  “No material thing presupposes or has reference to consciousness for it to exist or be characterized.”

Moreland elaborates:

You will search in vain through a physics or chemistry textbook to find consciousness included in any description of matter.  A completely physical description of the world would not include any terms that make reference to or characterize the existence and nature of consciousness.

So now you have a description of what physicalists believe about the mind and body.  They affirm that the body exists, but deny that anything like an immaterial mind exists.  For them, everything about human beings, and the world in its entirety, must be explained by physical/material substances, properties, and events. 

In our next post , we will look at what dualists believe.

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.