Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism

Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism

EJ Lowe

Substance dualism in the philosophy of mind is, naturally enough, commonly thought of on a Cartesian model, according to which it is a dualism of two radically different kinds of substance, one (the ‘body’) purely material and the other (the ‘mind’) wholly immaterial in nature. This view is subject to many familiar difficulties. However, the almost universal rejection of Cartesian substance dualism has blinded many philosophers to the possibility of formulating other and more plausible versions of substance dualism. Non-Cartesian substance dualism (NCSD), as it may most perspicuously be called, is a dualism not of minds and bodies, but of persons —or, more generally, of subjects of experience —and their ‘organized’ bodies. This is an ontological distinction that is chiefly motivated not by some fanciful notion that there could be disembodied persons—although NCSD does not rule out that possibility—but by much more solid considerations which require us, for instance, to distinguish between the identity-conditions of
persons and their bodies. Much of the intuitive appeal of Cartesian dualism is retained and explained by NCSD, without any of the former’s counterintuitive features and metaphysical difficulties. NCSD is, however, still a non-materialist position, because it is incompatible even with very weak forms of non-reductive physicalism. In what follows, I shall begin, in section 1, by explaining and justifying NCSD’s distinctive ontology of persons, before moving on, in section 2, to present and argue for its novel anti-physicalist account of the metaphysics of mental causation.

Returning to the self, we see, thus, that while we may well think that we have good scientific grounds for believing that the functioning of the brain is causally necessary for the continued existence of the self, nonetheless, in the nature of the case, such evidence as we possess for this is bound to be inconclusive—and not just for the reason that all empirical evidence is defeasible—since we lack any reductive analysis of what would constitute the ceasing-to-be of a self. Lacking such an analysis, we cannot really say what empirical evidence would or would not support a claim that a self had definitely ceased to be. This is why the prospects for life after bodily death must inevitably remain imponderable and unamenable to decisive empirical determination.

An admittedly odd take given the variety of evidence suggestive, at the very least, of Survival. However given some of the discussions we've had about irreducibility of Persons the next part is of greater interest:

Against this it may be urged that, since I have insisted that perception and agency are essential to selfhood, I must allow that the cessation of these would constitute a decisive terminus for the self ’s existence. However, it is the capacity for perception and agency that is essential, not its perpetual exercise. Very well, so can we not say that the demise of this capacity —and certainly its permanent demise— would constitute the demise of the self ? But the trouble is that saying this is not really informative. For what would constitute the permanent demise of this capacity? Only, as far as I can see, the very demise of the self—in other words, no genuinely noncircular answer to the question can be provided. It will not do to say that the permanent cessation of brain function would constitute the demise of the capacity for perception and agency. For the most that we can really say is that there seems to be an empirical correlation between mental activity and brain function, at least in the case of human persons. But the capacity for perception and agency does not by its very nature reside in any sort of cerebral condition. Indeed, there is nothing whatever unintelligible about supposing the existence of a capacity for perception and agency in a being entirely lacking a brain.

I would go even further than Lowe, as I cannot really grasp what it means to create a Person let alon[e] describe how a Person could be destroyed.

Perhaps the One-Many relation is not the Many coming from the One, but the Many themselves existing eternally alongside the One...whatever we take this "One" to be...

[Laird]

This is bit of a puzzling position to me. It is apparently motivated by "certain skeptical arguments to be found in the writings of numerous philosophers during the past three hundred years, including Locke and Kant. The burden of those arguments is that if psychological substances—by which the proponents of the arguments mean immaterial ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’—are the real subjects of mental states, then for all I know the substance having ‘my’ thoughts today is not numerically identical with the substance that had ‘my’ thoughts yesterday."

Hence, the author is "perfectly ready to allow that psychological substances should possess material characteristics—that is, that they should include physical states among their modes", going on to ask and answer: "How, though, does this repudiation of the Cartesian conception of a psychological substance help against the skeptical arguments mentioned a moment ago? Well, the main reason why those arguments seem to get any purchase is, I think, that in presupposing that psychological substances would have to be wholly nonphysical, they are able to take it for granted that such substances are not possible objects of ordinary sense perception. Such arguments represent psychological substances as being invisible and intangible and, as such, perceptible, at best, only by some mysterious faculty of introspection—and hence only by each such substance in respect of itself. But once it is allowed that psychological substances have quite familiar physical characteristics and can thus be seen and touched at least as ‘directly’ as any ordinary physical thing, the suggestion that we might be unable to detect a rapid exchange of these substances becomes as fanciful as the skeptical suggestion that the table on which I am now writing might ‘in reality’ be a succession of different but very short-lived tables successively replacing one another undetectably."

I haven't read the motivating skeptical arguments in their original presentations, but as presented in this paper in the quotes above, they sound specious. I don't see why an immaterial substance - merely in virtue of its being perceptible only through introspection - should be prone to doubts about the persistence of its identity over time: I see no more reason to suspect that my person is undergoing "a rapid exchange" than he does to suspect the same of the table on which he is writing. Nor do I see how, if anybody did have such doubts, they could rationally convince me that I ought to as well (I still don't), nor, if they could, why those doubts would be particularly more troublesome on substance dualism than on any other ontological position.

In any case, the author thus takes the position that otherwise-immaterial persons may also have material attributes. He then affirms the simplicity of the person and thus rejects any true identity between a person and that person's body insofar as that body has substantive parts, because parts would make the person complex rather than simple. He therefore is forced into affirming as material properties of the person only such simple ones as height and weight. However, his simultaneous allowance of the possibility that persons are separable from their bodies - in which case, presumably, they would no longer have material attributes - seems to concede that material attributes are not necessary for a person's existence, in which case, they can't truly be solving any problem, and seem to be pointless after all.

Am I misunderstanding something here, or are others as perplexed as to what's going on as I am?

Turning to Sci's follow-up to his thread-starter:

An admittedly odd take given the variety of evidence suggestive, at the very least, of Survival.

That's another oddity of this, yes.

However given some of the discussions we've had about irreducibility of Persons the next part is of greater interest:

[...]

I would go even further than Lowe, as I cannot really grasp what it means to create a Person let alon[e] describe how a Person could be destroyed.

Perhaps the One-Many relation is not the Many coming from the One, but the Many themselves existing eternally alongside the One...whatever we take this "One" to be...

All of this reminded me of Dr. Shakuntala Modi's book Memories of God and Creation which I think I've mentioned several times here over the years. I think I might reread it. Quickly dipping into the relevant chapter:

The picture she got from her hypnotised patients is that at the beginning (before Creation) there was a spark of light in the blackness of the void, like a small tear in its fabric, a light that expanded as an orb and subdivided like a cell. That light was God and the subdivided cells were individual souls. Each of them was both individually conscious as well as conscious of or rather as God.

@Laird - based on the SEP entry you linked in the other thread you've probably already noted this, but the argument that Cartesian Dualism cannot in confidence assert continuity of a person between days hinges on the seeming disappearance of a said person during sleep.

For proponents who believe in dream telepathy, OOBEs, and getting shared dreams of the dead this seems like a non-problem but since you asked figured I'd note it here. Basically thanks for providing the answer to the question you asked me!

[Laird]

@Laird - based on the SEP entry you linked in the other thread you've probably already noted this, but the argument that Cartesian Dualism cannot in confidence assert continuity of a person between days hinges on the seeming disappearance of a said person during sleep.

Hmm, no, I actually hadn't noticed that. Can you please point out where in that article you find that argument?

For proponents who believe in dream telepathy, OOBEs, and getting shared dreams of the dead this seems like a non-problem but since you asked figured I'd note it here. Basically thanks for providing the answer to the question you asked me!

Oh, but I think persons can temporarily cease to experience, such as when undergoing general anaesthetic, and such as when Tristan "died" for several years before returning to share his (their) body with Annika. I explained this in my most recent post to Valmar in the dualism thread.

I still see no reason to suspect that this should mean that the person stops existing. There doesn't seem to be an actual argument to that effect, merely an odd assertion, and one which I still see no reason to accept.

Hmm, no, I actually hadn't noticed that. Can you please point out where in that article you find that argument?

It was Option "b" in the SEP section about Unity of Mind & Substance Dualism ->

(b) The ‘consciousness’ account: The view that consciousness is the substance. Account (a) allowed the immaterial substance to have a nature over and above the kinds of state we would regard as mental. The consciousness account does not. This is Descartes’ view. The most obvious objection to this theory is that it does not allow the subject to exist when unconscious. This forces one to take one of four possible theories. One could claim (i) that we are conscious when we do not seem to be (which was Descartes’ view): or (ii) that we exist intermittently, though are still the same thing (which is Swinburne’s theory, (1997), 179): or (iii) that each of us consists of a series of substances, changed at any break in consciousness, which pushes one towards a constructivist account of identity through time and so towards the spirit of the bundle theory: or (iv) even more speculatively, that the self stands in such a relation to the normal time series that its own continued existence is not brought into question by its failure to be present in time at those moments when it is not conscious within that series (Robinson, forthcoming).

To be clear I'm not saying I am aligned with the argument that unconsciousness means we stop existing, just that you had asked what this argument mentioned by EJ Lowe was.

It seems to me that this argument, "the most obvious objection to this theory is that it does not allow the subject to exist when unconscious.", is of the kind EJ Lowe was referring to when he said:

...certain skeptical arguments to be found in the writings of numerous philosophers during the past three hundred years, including Locke and Kant. The burden of those arguments is that if psychological substances—by which the proponents of the arguments mean immaterial ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’—are the real subjects of mental states, then for all I know the substance having ‘my’ thoughts today is not numerically identical with the substance that had ‘my’ thoughts yesterday...

I agree this is not the best argument, if for no other reason than it seems to me even looking at the mundane world one is awakened by feeling such as the urge to urinate or a loud noise. (Apologies for crudity, the example just seemed common enough to be of value in discussion).

As such it doesn't seem sleep really removes the Experiencer from the continuity of Time.

It was Option "b" in the SEP section about Unity of Mind & Substance Dualism ->


To be clear I'm not saying I am aligned with the argument that unconsciousness means we stop existing, just that you had asked what this argument mentioned by EJ Lowe was.

It seems to me that this argument, "the most obvious objection to this theory is that it does not allow the subject to exist when unconscious.", is of the kind EJ Lowe was referring to when he said:


I agree this is not the best argument, if for no other reason than it seems to me even looking at the mundane world one is awakened by feeling such as the urge to urinate or a loud noise. (Apologies for crudity, the example just seemed common enough to be of value in discussion).

As such it doesn't seem sleep really removes the Experiencer from the continuity of Time.

Especially when we consider dreams. We can have dreams that are full of detail, often nonsensical, filled with narratives and structures that we move through, even if we don't even remember, even on waking, that we ever had one ~ only knowing because something in the waking world triggered the memory of something from a dream. So the Experiencer must obviously exist... and we must have memories of dream, even if we don't recall them.

Even in general, the Experiencer is witness to reality through the framing the brain and aura and such, so if the body and brain are in a different state, then the Experiencer will come along for the ride ~ not gone at all, but influenced by it into experiencing... apparently nothing. Anesthesia forcing the brain and so Experiencer into a very low-energy state ~ but for there to be continuity of self that recalls time instantly passing, the Experiencer must logically still exist. So the Physicalist claim that anesthesia "turns off" the self makes no sense... especially if people can still wake up in the middle of an operation on the standard doses.

[Laird]

It seems to me that this argument, "the most obvious objection to this theory is that it does not allow the subject to exist when unconscious.", is of the kind EJ Lowe was referring to

Possibly: the reference to "yesterday" in that quote of EJ Lowe's might be implying an overnight, in turn implying sleep.

On the other hand, what, then, would be the significance of his later reference (which I also quoted in my initial reply) to "a rapid exchange of these substances"? That doesn't sound like anything to do with sleep.

Possibly: the reference to "yesterday" in that quote of EJ Lowe's might be implying an overnight, in turn implying sleep.

On the other hand, what, then, would be the significance of his later reference (which I also quoted in my initial reply) to "a rapid exchange of these substances"? That doesn't sound like anything to do with sleep.

Perhaps he feels there is nothing to track the enduring self if it's extensionless?

Really the argument would only seem to hold weight in regards to periods of unconsciousness, yet the very fact of our dreams and our ability to be awakened by sensory stimulus (sometimes of our own internal organs) negates this issue IMO.

[Laird]

Perhaps he feels there is nothing to track the enduring self if it's extensionless?

Perhaps. He seems to be saying in that quote that if the self can't be externally perceived, then for all we know it's rapidly being replaced moment to moment. Why only external perception counts would then perhaps be explained as you go on to suggest: that during periods of unconsciousness like (supposedly) sleep, internal perception ceases.

For me, the argument's a non-starter even allowing for periods of unconsciousness. Why would we entertain the bizarre possibility that our selves might replace themselves from moment to moment in the first place, whether conscious or unconscious? Even if we did entertain it as a possibility, why would we then take it seriously enough to consider it the basis of an argument against substance dualism? It makes no sense to me.