Mind–body dualism
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In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either that mental phenomena are non-physical,[1] or that the mind and body are distinct and separable.[2] Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, as well as between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.[1][2]
Aristotle shared Plato's view of multiple souls and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals, and humans: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism that all three share; a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure, and desire that only humans and other animals share; and the faculty of reason that is unique to humans only. In this view, a soul is the hylomorphic form of a viable organism, wherein each level of the hierarchy formally supervenes upon the substance of the preceding level. For Aristotle, the first two souls, based on the body, perish when the living organism dies,[3][4] whereas there remains an immortal and perpetual intellective part of mind.[5] For Plato, however, the soul was not dependent on the physical body; he believed in metempsychosis, the migration of the soul to a new physical body.[6] It has been considered a form of reductionism by some philosophers, since it enables the tendency to ignore very big groups of variables by its assumed association with the mind or the body, and not for its real value when it comes to explaining or predicting a studied phenomenon.[7]
Dualism is closely associated with the thought of René Descartes (1641), who holds that the mind is a nonphysical—and therefore, non-spatial—substance. Descartes clearly identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the physical brain as the seat of intelligence.[8] Hence, he was the first documented Western philosopher to formulate the mind–body problem in the form in which it exists today.[9] However, the theory of substance dualism has many advocates in contemporary philosophy such as Richard Swinburne, William Hasker, J. P. Moreland, E. J. Low, Charles Taliaferro, Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad, and John Foster.[10]
Dualism is contrasted with various kinds of monism. Substance dualism is contrasted with all forms of materialism, but property dualism may be considered a form of non-reductive physicalism.
- ^ a b Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell.
- ^ a b Crane, Tim; Patterson, Sarah (2001). "Introduction". History of the Mind-Body Problem. pp. 1–2.
the assumption that mind and body are distinct (essentially, dualism)
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Ari2was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Aristotle. [c. mid 4th century BC] 1924. Metaphysics (Metaphysica), edited by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2 vols.
- 1971. Books IV-VI, trans. C. A. Kirwan, Clarendon Aristotle Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press;
- 1976. Books XIII–XIV trans. J. Annas, Clarendon Aristotle Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press;
- 1994. Books VII-VIII trans. D. Bostock, Clarendon Aristotle Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Aristotle, De Anima III:
- "For whereas the sensitive faculty is not found apart from the body, the intellect is separate." (4, 429b3)
- "When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal." (5, 430a22)
- ^ Duke, E. A., W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, et al., eds. 1995. Platonis Opera, Vol. 1: Tetralogiae I-II, Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198145691.book.1. (includes Euthyphro, Apologia Socratis, Crito, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophistes, and Politicus.)
- ^ "Reductionism in Biology". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2017.
- ^ Robinson, Howard. [2003] 2016. "Dualism" (rev.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta.
- ^ Descartes, René. [1641] 1984. "Meditations on First Philosophy." pp. 1–62 in The Philosophical Writings of René Descartes 2, translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Mousavirad, Seyyed Jaaber; Philosophy Documentation Center (2023). "Coherence of Substance Dualism". International Philosophical Quarterly. 63 (1): 33–42. doi:10.5840/ipq20231114214. ISSN 0019-0365.