In the last decade, there has been a notable upsurge in property (PD) and generic substance dualism (SD). By SD I mean the view that there is a spiritual substantial soul that is different from but variously related to its body. SD includes Cartesian, certain forms of late Medieval hylomorphic (e.g., Aquinas'), and Haskerian emergent SD. Nevertheless, some form of physicalism remains the majority view in philosophy of mind. Several fairly standard objections have been raised against SD, and SDists have (...) been preoccupied with these objections. As a result, a potent objection has not been given the attention it deserves. The purpose of this article is to fill that lacuna by raising the visibility of this objection and providing plausible responses to it. First, I shall clarify the explanatory–impotence challenge and, second, provide defeaters against it. Note that several of the issues to follow apply both to PD and SD. I will focus mostly on SD, but sometimes PD is a part of the discussion in that certain arguments for and against PD indirectly affect SD. When it is important for me to note that either SD or PD is specifically being addressed, I will notify the reader. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of the object of psychology in the context of recent attempts in philosophy of mind to restore the concept of the soul in the framework of a strong anthropological dualism. After an historical and philosophical explanation of the modern dismissal of the human soul as the object of psychology, this article provides a critical examination of the new turn to dualism by reference to an exemplary case. It is shown that apriorism and spiritualism are the (...) two fundamental problems that explain neodualism’s inefficacy to provide a convincing argument for the restoration of the substantial soul as the object of psychology. Finally, certain guidelines for a new approach to this question are proposed in rudimentary form. (shrink)

Liberalism and naturalism are the reigning orthodoxies of most faculties today, while dualism is overwhelmingly rejected. The overarching claim defended in this paper is that liberals should consider dualism more seriously than what currently seems to be the case. This claim will be defended in two stages. First, I will argue that dualism provides better resources with which to defend foundational liberal commitments to human equality and human agency than those naturalism offers. Secondly, I will argue that dualism is plausible (...) enough to be seriously considered by liberals granted that this view is friendlier to liberal commitments than naturalism is. (shrink)

Laplacean Determinism (his so-called demon argument) is the thesis that every event that transpires in a closed universe is a physical event caused (i.e., determined) in full by some earlier event in accord with laws that govern their behavior. On this view, it is possible, in principle, to make perfect predictions of the state of the universe at any time Tn on the basis of complete knowledge of the state of the universe at time T1. Thus, if identity theory, epiphenomenalism (...) or any other instantiation of Laplacean Determinism is correct, mental events such as free will, intention and other forms of mental agency are tricks of the mind, misleading us into believing our volitional concerns have traction in a world ruled entirely by physical circumstance. Not surprisingly, advocates of free will and related acts of human volition have engaged in spirited debate with adherents to Laplacean orthodoxy, the results of which have been far from conclusive. Rather than join these deliberations, I wholly embrace the demon argument and then ask “what are the consequences of this allegiance?” As I hope to show, acceptance of this argument commits one to a belief in the existence of human precognition. This, I suggest, is a consequence that does not fit comfortably within a contemporary scientific worldview. (shrink)

This Target paper is about the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness (i.e., how is subjective experience possible given the scientific presumption that everything from molecules to minerals to minds is wholly physical?). I first argue that one of the most valuable tools in the scientific arsenal (metaphor) cannot be recruited to address the hard problem due to the inability to forge connections between the stubborn fact of subjective experience and physically grounded models of scientific explanation. I then argue that adherence (...) to the physicalist tenets of contemporary science has a limiting effect on a full appreciation of the phenomenon under discussion. (shrink)

I examine some of the key scientific pre-commitments of modern psychology, and argue that their adoption has the unintended consequence of rendering a purely psychological analysis of mind indistinguishable from a purely biological treatment. And, since these pre-commitments sanction an “authority of the biological”, explanation of phenomena traditionally considered the purview of psychological analysis is fully subsumed under the biological. I next evaluate the epistemic warrant of these pre-commitments and suggest there are good reasons to question their applicability to psychological (...) science. I conclude that experiential aspects of reality give us reason to remain open to the need for psychological explanation in the treatment of mind. (shrink)