dualism - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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<div class="logo"> <img src="_images/logo_01.png" alt="The Skeptic's Dictionary" width="270" height="60" border="0" />           <br /> by <a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/bio.html">Robert Todd Carroll</a> * est. 1994 </div> <div class="slogan"> <img src="_images/slogan_01.gif" alt="A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions" width="362" height="30" /> </div> </div> <div class="menu"> <ul> <li></li><li><a href="http://skepdic.com/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/news/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/feedback.html">Feedback</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/faq.html">FAQ & Interviews</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tour.html">Site Map</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="middle"> <div class="left"> <h2>Topical Indexes</h2> <ul class="nav_1"> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tialtmed.html">Alternatives to Medicine</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/ticriticalthinking.html">Critical Thinking</a></li> 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href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>dualism</h1> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Dualism is the metaphysical doctrine that there are two substances, i.e., distinct and independent types of being, one material and the other spiritual. Material substance is defined as physical and is asserted to be the underlying reality of the empirical world, i.e., the world we see, hear, etc., and measure with our senses and technical instruments that extend the range of the senses, such as electron microscopes, telescopes, radar, etc. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">The spiritual world is usually described negatively as the non-physical, non-material reality underlying the non-empirical world, variously called the psychological, the mental, or the spiritual world. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Dualists are fond of a belief in immortality. If there is another type of reality besides the body, this non-body can survive death. The <i>non</i>-body can conceivably exist eternally in a <i>non</i>-physical world, enjoying <i>non</i>-physical pleasures or pains distributed by a <i>non</i>-physical god. This notion is <i>non</i>-sense, but it apparently gives many people great comfort and hope. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Some dualists are fond of drawing a significant inference from the fact that we use different kinds of language to talk about physical things and non-physical things. They note that when we talk about physical things we use language that locates or causally connects objects in space. When we talk about processes such as <i>thinking</i>, however, we don't use the language of things in space. We don't think of thinking as taking place in a particular place or of a thought as having physical dimensions. That is true; however, we can't infer from this fact about language that the non-physical is a substance, i.e., a type of reality capable of independent existence, not reducible to some other phenomenon. Most dualists would agree that colors, for example, are not substances because colors do not have independent existence: they are reducible to other phenomena, such as light, sensory apparatus, etc. Yet, many dualists would deny that <i>thinking, perceiving, willing, desiring</i>, etc., are reducible to material processes (e.g., brain states). They believe these psychological or mental activities are best explained as functions of a non-physical substance. They can certainly be coherently explained by dualism, but it is not necessary to bring in the belief in non-physical reality to explain everything that is hard to talk about <i>physically</i>. As noted above, there are also problems with trying to conceive of non-physical perception, despite Descartes' argument that such a conception is absolutely clear and distinct in his <i>Meditations on First Philosophy</i>, an argument essential to dualism.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>See also</b> <a HREF="astralpr.html">astral projection</a>,<a HREF="mind.html"> mind</a>, <a HREF="nde.html"> near-death experience</a>, <a HREF="obe.html">out-of-body experience</a>, <a HREF="remotevw.html">remote viewing</a>, and <a HREF="soul.html">soul</a>. </font> </p> <hr align="left" noshade width="25%"> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b>  </font> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0262530856/roberttoddcarrolA/">Churchland, Patricia Smith. <i>Neurophilosophy - Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain</i> (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).</a> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0262540371/roberttoddcarrolA/">Dennett, Daniel Clement. <i>Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology </i>(Montgomery, Vt.: Bradford Books, 1978).</a> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0316180661/roberttoddcarrolA/">Dennett, Daniel Clement. <i>Consciousness explained</i> illustrated by Paul Weiner (Boston : Little, Brown and Co., 1991).</a> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0465073514/roberttoddcarrolA/">Dennett, Daniel Clement. <i>Kinds of minds : toward an understanding of consciousness</i> (New York, N.Y. : Basic Books, 1996).</a> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0631184899/roberttoddcarrolA/">Ryle, Gilbert & Rene Meyer (Editor) <i>Aspects of Mind</i> (Blackwell Pub, 1993) </a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0226732959/roberttoddcarrolA/">Ryle, Gilbert. <i>The Concept of Mind</i> (New York: Barnes and Noble: 1949).</a> </font> <p style="text-align: left"><strong><font face="Arial" size="3">website</font></strong> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/d9.htm#dual">Mind-Body Dualism</a></font><p></webContent>Last updated 27-Oct-2015 </p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <div class="center"> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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