Dualism (philosophy of the spirit)

History of dualism in philosophy

Plato

In its dialog Phédon , Plato formula his famous design of the eternal Forms as a Substance S distinct and immaterial whose objects and other phenomena which we perceive are only the shades. The shape of a thing, for Aristote, is nature or the gasoline (of the Greek ousia ) of this thing. To affirm that Socrate and Callias are both of the men does not mean that there exists a transcendent entity " homme" which Socrate and Callias belong both. The form is Substance, but it is not Substance beyond the Substance of the concrete entities which it characterizes. Aristote rejects at the same time the universalia in rebus and the universalia handle rem .

The scholastic

The philosophers then continued in optics neo-Aristotelician traced by Thomas d' Aquin, developing a tripartite concept forms, thus making it parallel with the Trinity consisted the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: the forms, intellect and the heart were the three aspects or parts of the same singular phenomenon. For Thomas d' Aquin, the heart (or intellect) always constituted the Substance of the human being, but, in a way similar so that Aristote had proposed, it is only through its demonstrations in the Human body that a person could acquire the statute of human being. Whereas the heart (intellect or form) could exist independently of the body (as opposed to what Aristote affirmed), the heart in itself did not constitute a person. Thus, Thomas d' Aquin suggested that one said " the heart of St Pierre requests for nous" rather than to say " St Pierre requests for nous" , since all that it remained of St Pierre, after his death, was its heart. All the things related to the body, like the individual memory, were unobtrusive with the end of the body existence of each one. Various visions exist on this question in modern Christendom. Doctrines of the official Catholic church, as it is illustrated by the Symbole of the Apostles (Creed), affirms that with the second arrival of Christ on Earth, the heart is joined together with the body at the time of resurrection, and the very whole person (body and heart) share then towards the Paradis or the Enfer. Thus, there are a kind of inseparability of the heart, Esprit and body, which seems even closer to Aristote than the positions expressed by Thomas d' Aquin. Many theologists do not accept these doctrines and insist on the fact that only the immaterial heart (and consequently the Esprit or intellect with it) share for the Paradise, leaving the body (and the brain) behind it for always.

Descartes and its disciples

In its Meditations metaphysics , Descartes launched out in a search during which it was committed doubting all it in what it believed, in order to discover that of which it could be certain.

Typology of dualisms in philosophy

Various types of ontological dualisms

Ontological dualism consists of the assertion of the dual character of the existence in connection to the Esprit and the matter, and can be divided into three categories:

(1) The dualism of Substance advances that the Esprit and the matter are types of basically distinct Substance.

The dualism of attribute

The dualism of attribute is the point of view married by the majority of the nonreductionistic physicalists, such Donald Davidson and Jerry Fodor, which supports that, while there is only one ontological category of Substance and properties of Substance (usually physical), the attributes which one uses to describe the mental events cannot be in their turn described in term of physical attributes by the natural language, nor to be reduced there. If one characterizes the monism of attribute as the point of view to which the materialists eliminatists adhere, who maintain that intentional attributes such as the belief, the desire, felt, etc, will be inevitably withdrawn from the language of science and of the ordinary language because the entities to which they refer do not exist, then the dualism of attributes is more easily defined as being the negation of this position. The dualistic ones of attribute believe that what one can call the " psychology of the peuple" , with all its attributions of propositional attitudes, is an inevitable part of the company of description, explanation and comprehension of the mental states and behavior of the man.

For example, Davidson adheres to a vision monism anomalous, according to which there cannot be strict psychophysical laws connecting the mental and physical events according to their descriptions as mental events and physical . However, to each one of these mental events corresponds a physical description. It is according to this last description that of such events can be connected by causal relations with other physical events. The mental attributes (rational, holistic and necessary) are thus different) in an irreducible way of the physical attributes (quota, atomic and causal). The philosophers call Qualia these subjective aspects of the Esprit. There is something what resembles a color, a burn, and so on; the qualia intervene in these mental events. The argument is whereas these qualia seems particularly difficult to bring back to anything of physics. David Lewis answers this argument by saying that what Mary was brought to know was simply the capacity to be recognized and to identify the feelings of color to which it had beforehand never been exposed. This argument is put at fault since it makes confusion between the fact of of knowing how to make something, and to know a thing as such. Others took again the argument of Lewis and tried to modify it, advancing that the capacity which is learned consists of a process of imagination or memorizing. But imagination and memorizing are both founded on the representation of it what a thing resembles. Consequently, this argument does not answer the initial problem.

The argument of special sciences

This argument consists in saying that, if the dualism of the attributes is true, then there exist irreducible special sciences with physics. These irreducible special sciences, which are the source of presumedly irreducible attributes, are supposed different from hard sciences insofar as they are dependant on an intentionality. If they depend on an intentionality, then they must depend on the existence of Esprit S capable of an intentional posture. Psychology is of course the typical case of such a special science. Consequently, this science and its attributes must depend even more deeply on the existence of the Esprit.

Ideally, physics has as a function to say to us how is the world, to break up it into its comprehensible simplest elements by the man, and to describe it without the interferences due to the points of view limited of the individuals or the personal interests concerned. Of another with dimensions, things such as the prédictible character of the weather or the behavior of the human beings have interest only for the human being itself. The problem is that the fact of having a point of view on the world is in oneself a psychological state. Consequently, special sciences presuppose the existence of Esprit S which can reach these states. If one wishes to avoid ontological dualism, then the Esprit, which has a point of view, must belong to the physical reality on which it has his point of view. If it is the case, then in order to perceive the physical world as a psychological world, the Esprit must have a point of view on the physical world. This presupposes in return the existence of the Esprit.

Argument of the individual identity

This argument relates to the differences in the application of contrefactuelles proposals to the physical objects on the one hand, and the gifted entities of conscience on the other hand. In the case of any material object (for example: a printer), one can formulate series of proposition in the following way contrefactuelles:

# This printer could be made of straw.

# This printer could be made of an unspecified kind of plastic, and electron tubes.

# This printer could be made to a total value of 95% of that of which it is really made up, and of 5% of electron tubes, etc

Some share between the point where the described printer is precisely made materials which constitute the genuine printer, and the point where the printer is made of, let us say, different material 20%, one can decide that the printer becomes the same printer according to an arbitrarily fixed convention. Let us imagine a person, Frederique, who has a twin born of same egg and a slightly different spermatozoon. Let us imagine series of proposition contrefactuelles corresponding to the example of the printer. Some share during the course of the proposals, the identity of Frederique becomes dubious. In this case, it was marked that the superposability of the constitutions cannot be applied to the identity of the Esprit S. “But while my body can then have its partial copy in possible an other world, my conscience cannot it. Any state of consciousness that I can imagine is either with me, or with another. There are no possible nuances here. ”

Arguments against dualism

Argument on the causal interaction

Various kinds of dualisms implying that the Esprit affects the matter in a causal way underwent hard attacks of all shares, in particular since the beginning of the XXe century. How something of purely immaterial can it affect something of purely material? It is the fundamental problems of the causal interaction . We analyze here this problem under three aspects. Accesses, the place even of the interaction is not very clear. For example, the fact of burning the fingers causes pain. Apparently, it has a chain of events, on the basis of the burn of the skin, leading to the stimulation of the nervous terminations, then with one (or several) events being necessary in a particular place of the brain, for finally finishing by the feeling of pain. But the pain is not supposed to be localisable. Then, where the interaction takes place? If you answer, “It takes place in the brain”, then I could retort, “But, I thought that the pain was not nowhere localized. ” And, as dualistic, you could cling to your idea and to answer “Indeed, the pain is not localized nowhere ; but the cerebral event which is the direct cause of the pain is localized in the brain. ” And one finds oneself with a very strange causal relation. The cause is localized in a given place, but the effect is not nowhere localized. Perhaps this criticism is not it if devastator that.

Let us interest now in a second difficulty which arises with the interaction: Comment the interaction does it occur? One could think, “Eh well, it is a question for science; the scientists will end up discovering the bond between the physical and mental events. ” But the philosophers have also their word to say on this subject: the idea even of a mechanism explaining the bond between the mental one and the physique would be, as well as possible, very strange. Why that? Let us compare it with a mechanism which one includes/understands. Let us take a very simple causal relation, as for example what occurs when the white ball knocks the black ball with American billiards, and makes it go in the hole. Here, one can say that the white ball has a certain momentum when its mass crosses the billiard table at a certain speed, then that this momentum is transferred to the black ball, which moves then towards the hole. Let us compare this situation now with what occurs in the brain, where one would like that a decision involves the release of certain neurons and thus to involve the movement of my body. The intention “I will cross the part” is a mental event and, as such, does not have any physical property like a force. If it does not have a force, then how could it involve the release of any neuron? Is this by magic? How something not having any physical property couldn't it have the least physical effect?

With that, one could answer, as certain philosophers did it in their time, in the following way: “Eh well indeed, there is something of mysterious in the way in which the interaction between the mental one and the physique take place. But the fact that there is something of mysterious does not mean that the interaction does not take place. Simply, there is an interaction, which takes place between two kinds of completely different events. ” The problem with this answer is that it does not seem to answer entirely the formulated objection. Let us try to formulate this objection more precisely. Let us take as example my decision to cross the part. Dualistic interpretation is the following one: My decision, a mental event, immediately causes the release of a group of neurons in my brain, a physical event, which results with final in the fact that I cross the part indeed. The problem is that, if something of completely not physics involves the release of a package of neurons, then there is no physical event which causes the release of the neurons. That means that physical energy seems to be appeared of nowhere. Even if it is affirmed that my decision has an arbitrary form of mental energy, and that this decision is the cause of the release of the neurons, one still did not explain where physical energy, for release, came. It simply seems to be created from nothing.

Conservation of energy and causal closing

One of the principal objections to the dualistic interactionnism, as it was mentioned higher, is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to include/understand how two types of completely different Substance S (material and immaterial) can interact in a causal way. A possible answer to this problem is to underline the fact that, perhaps, the causal interaction which takes place is not at all of the same type as the interaction of Newtonian Mécanique traditional as in the example of the billiard balls, but puts rather concerned energy, dark matter or any another mysterious process. Of another dimensioned, the laws of conservation apply only to the systems closed and isolated, and, since the human beings are not closed and isolated systems, answer the interactionnists, these laws do not apply absolutely here. In the same state of Spirit, some refute the dualistic interactionnism by explaining why he violates a principle general Heuristique of science: the causal Closing of the physical world. But Mills answered this argument by underlining the fact that the mental events can be surdéterminés. The surdetermination means that certain aspects of effect can not be completely explained by its sufficient causes. For examples, “the acute music made break this glass, but it is the third time that this glass broke this week. ” It is certain that the acute music is the sufficient cause owing to the fact that glass broke, but that does not explain the other element of the sentence, the fact that “it is the third time this week… ”. This element is dependant in a causal way, in a direction, with the two former events. Consequently, it was stressed that one should probably focus the intrinsic or inherent aspects of a situation or an event, if they exist, and apply the idea of causal closing only to these elements. In addition, the question arises Déterminisme in opposition to the indeterminism. In quantum mechanics, the events on a microscopic scale are unspecified. More precise is the localization of the position of a electron, vaguer becomes the measurement of its kinetic moment, and vice versa. Certain philosophers such Karl Popper and John Eccles put forth the assumption that such an indetermination could also apply on a macroscopic scale. The majority of the scientists, however, insist on the fact that the effects of such an indetermination are cancelled mutually for the great assemblies of particles.

Argument on the cerebral damage

This argument runs but powerful was formulated inter alia by Paul Churchland. The idea is simply that, when the brain undergo a certain type of damage (caused by an car accident, an excessive drug-taking or a pathological disease), the properties and/or the mental Substance of the person concerned are systematically affected. If the Esprit were a Substance entirely distinct from the brain, how would it be possible that, each time the Cerveau is wounded, the Esprit is affected? Indeed, it is even very often possible to predict and explain the type of deteriorations or mental or psychological modifications that an human being will undergo when certain specific parts of its brain are damaged. Thus, the question to which the dualistic one faces is that of knowing how all this can be explained if the Esprit is a Substance immaterial and distinct, or ontologiquement independent, brain.

Argument of the biological development

Another argument running against dualism consists of the idea that since that the human being comes to the existence (at the same time phylogenetically and ontogénétiquement) as a purely physical or material entity, and since nothing outside to the field of physics was added to him thereafter to the course of its development then one must necessarily finish our development as entirely material beings.

Phylogenetically, the mankind evolved/moved, like all the other species, starting from a being monocellulaire makes matter. Since all the later events leading to the formation of our species can be explained through the process of change random and natural selection, the difficulty for the dualistic one is to explain where and there why it could have had the intervention of a nonphysical event, not material in the process of the natural evolution. Ontogénétiquement, one begins our existence as a Ovule fertilized. There are nothing nonmaterial or mentalist in the design, the formation of the blastocyste, the Gastrula, and so on. Our development can be explained entirely in terms of accumulation of matter through the process of Nutrition. Then, from where our Esprit could come not physics?

Argument of simplicity

The argument of simplicity is probably simplest is also more running against dualism body Esprit. The dualistic one is systematically confronted with the question of knowing why one should necessarily believe in the existence of two entities ontologiquement distinct (the Esprit and the Cerveau), whereas it seems possible, and more easily refutable with scientific tools for investigation, to explain the same events and same the properties with only one entity. It is a heuristic principle in science and philosophy not to consider the existence of more than entities than it is not necessary for an explanation and a clear prediction (see Rasoir of Ockham)

See too

Heart
Substance
Body
Descartes
Leibniz
Problem body-spirit

External bonds

Full text of the Meditations metaphysics of Descartes

References

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