Materialism, Minds, and Cartesian Dualism

Materialism, Minds, and Cartesian Dualism
Author: Robert Francis Almeder
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2022-03-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0761872949

Materialism, Minds, and Cartesian Dualism offers a history of how philosophers and scientists have thought about mind/body problems, especially as it concerns the question of consciousness after death. This book interrogates the last thirty years of scientific research on reincarnation, considering a series of case studies impossible to explain in any other way than persisting consciousness after death. Although this book does not attempt to argue why or how some people reincarnate and how long they reincarnate. It argues that these case studies demonstrate in compelling ways that some people have indeed to some degree reincarnated. Therefore the philosophical materialist position that only physical objects exist is refuted.

The Immaterial Self

The Immaterial Self
Author: John Foster
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2002-01-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134731051

Dualism argues that the mind is more than just the brain. It holds that there exists two very different realms, one mental and the other physical. Both are fundamental and one cannot be reduced to the other - there are minds and there is a physical world. This book examines and defends the most famous dualist account of the mind, the cartesian, which attributes the immaterial contents of the mind to an immaterial self. John Foster's new book exposes the inadequacies of the dominant materialist and reductionist accounts of the mind. In doing so he is in radical conflict with the current philosophical establishment. Ambitious and controversial, The Immaterial Self is the most powerful and effective defence of Cartesian dualism since Descartes' own

Contemporary Dualism

Contemporary Dualism
Author: Andrea Lavazza
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2014-02-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1136682406

Ontological materialism, in its various forms, has become the orthodox view in contemporary philosophy of mind. This book provides a variety of defenses of mind-body dualism, and shows (explicitly or implicitly) that a thoroughgoing ontological materialism cannot be sustained. The contributions are intended to show that, at the very least, ontological dualism (as contrasted with a dualism that is merely linguistic or epistemic) constitutes a philosophically respectable alternative to the monistic views that currently dominate thought about the mind-body (or, perhaps more appropriately, person-body) relation.

The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism

The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism
Author: Jonathan J. Loose
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 531
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1119375266

A groundbreaking collection of contemporary essays from leading international scholars that provides a balanced and expert account of the resurgent debate about substance dualism and its physicalist alternatives. Substance dualism has for some time been dismissed as an archaic and defeated position in philosophy of mind, but in recent years, the topic has experienced a resurgence of scholarly interest and has been restored to contemporary prominence by a growing minority of philosophers prepared to interrogate the core principles upon which past objections and misunderstandings rest. As the first book of its kind to bring together a collection of contemporary writing from top proponents and critics in a pro-contra format, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism captures this ongoing dialogue and sets the stage for rigorous and lively discourse around dualist and physicalist accounts of human persons in philosophy. Chapters explore emergent, Thomistic, Cartesian, and other forms of substance dualism—broadly conceived—in dialogue with leading varieties of physicalism, including animalism, non-reductive physicalism, and constitution theory. Loose, Menuge, and Moreland pair essays from dualist advocates with astute criticism from physicalist opponents and vice versa, highlighting points of contrast for readers in thematic sections while showcasing today’s leading minds engaged in direct debate. Taken together, essays provide nuanced paths of introduction for students, and capture the imagination of professional philosophers looking to expand their understanding of the subject. Skillfully curated and in touch with contemporary science as well as analytic theology, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism strikes a measured balanced between advocacy and criticism, and is a first-rate resource for researchers, scholars, and students of philosophy, theology, and neuroscience.

Mind and Cosmos

Mind and Cosmos
Author: Thomas Nagel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2012-11-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199919755

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

Consciousness Explained

Consciousness Explained
Author: Daniel C. Dennett
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
Total Pages: 707
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0316439487

Daniel Dennett's "brilliant" exploration of human consciousness — named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times — is a masterpiece beloved by both scientific experts and general readers (New York Times Book Review). Consciousness Explained is a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life — of people, animal, even robots — are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book. "Dennett is a witty and gifted scientific raconteur, and the book is full of fascinating information about humans, animals, and machines. The result is highly digestible and a useful tour of the field." —Wall Street Journal

The Emergent Self

The Emergent Self
Author: William Hasker
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2001-11-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780801487606

In The Emergent Self, William Hasker joins one of the most heated debates in analytic philosophy, that over the nature of mind. His provocative and clearly written book challenges physicalist views of human mental functioning and advances the concept of mind as an emergent individual. Hasker begins by mounting a compelling critique of the dominant paradigm in philosophy of mind, showing that contemporary forms of materialism are seriously deficient in confronting crucial aspects of experience. He further holds that popular attempts to explain the workings of mind in terms of mechanistic physics cannot succeed. He then criticizes the two versions of substance dualism most widely accepted today—Cartesian and Thomistic—and presents his own theory of emergent dualism. Unlike traditional substance dualisms, Hasker's theory recognizes the critical role of the brain and nervous system for mental processes. It also avoids the mechanistic reductionism characteristic of recent materialism. Hasker concludes by addressing the topic of survival following bodily death. After demonstrating the failure of materialist views to offer a plausible and coherent account of that possibility, he considers the implications of emergentism for notions of resurrection and the afterlife.

Leibniz's Mill

Leibniz's Mill
Author: Charles Landesman
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Dualism
ISBN: 9780268034115

Landesman claims that dualism must be preferred to materialism. The self cannot be reduced to the body, even although in some ways dependent on it.

Mind and Brain

Mind and Brain
Author: Rocco J. Gennaro
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1624668836

Since its publication in 1996, many thousands of students have first encountered key issues in the philosophy of mind in the pages of Rocco J. Gennaro's introductory work, Mind and Brain: A Dialogue on the Mind-Body Problem. In this new edition, Gennaro updates and expands the work to reflect current topics and discussions. The dialogue provides a clear and compelling overview of the mind-body problem suitable for both introductory students and those who have some background in the philosophy of mind. Topics include: ImmortalityMaterialism Descartes’ “Divisibility Argument” for substance dualismThe “Argument from Introspection” for substance dualismThe main objections to dualismThe interaction between mind and brainThe relation between brain damage and the prospect of an afterlifeParallelism and epiphenomenalismThe type/token distinction within materialism and the problem of multiple realizability Arguments against materialism and its ability to explain consciousnessProperty dualism and panpsychismThe epistemological problem of other mindsThe nature of inductive knowledgeEvidence for animal consciousnessThe problem of machine or robot mindsThe inverted spectrum argument Also included are a brief Introduction, a list of Study Questions designed to enhance classroom discussion and serve as a resource for the development of paper topics, a Glossary, and an Index of Key Terms.