Abstract
Many religiously minded materialist philosophers have attempted to understand the doctrine of the survival of death from within a physicalist approach. Their goal is not to show the doctrine false, but to explain how it can be true. One such approach has been developed by Peter van Inwagen. After explaining what I call the duplication objection, I present van Inwagen’s proposal and show how a proponent might attempt to solve the problem of duplication. I argue that the very features of the view that aid the proponent in responding to the duplication objection entails the possibility of an impossible state of affairs—that two distinct persons can at the same time be identical with the same bundle of material simples. The religiously minded materialist is caught between the horns of a dilemma. One’s view regarding human persons must be robust enough to account for personal identity over time, and so not fall to the duplication objection. At the same time, the view must not entail the possibility of two persons temporarily having complete coincident existence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In, ‘The Possibility of Resurrection,’ International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (1978): 114–121, reprinted with a postscript in Peter van Inwagen, The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), van Inwagen discusses an explanation of the doctrine of life after death. In his book, Material Beings (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), he explicates his materialist view of human persons as part of his ontology of material objects. Van Inwagen also has much interesting and relevant work in his, Ontology, Identity, and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Metaphysics, 2nd edition (Boulder: Westview Press, 2002)
For a defense of a relativized principle of identity see George Mayro, ‘Identity and Time,’ in Material Constitution: A Reader, Michael C. Rea editor (Lanham, MS: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997) pp. 148–172. For those who disagree, my final conclusion can be put in the form of a conditional, ‘If one accepts the principle of the necessity of metaphysical identity, then….’
By ‘simple substantivalist physicalism’ I refer to the view that identifies person (or mind) with body (or brain)
This is a widely accepted approach in the philosophy of mind. For an example of this approach from a religiously oriented philosopher, see Lynne Rudder Baker, ‘Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist?,’ Faith and Philosophy 12(4): 489–504, 1995
I will limit my discussion in what follows to only psychological ‘information’ with the expressed intention that I mean it to apply to any physicalist, non-material account of the personal identity of human beings
In his, Material Beings, van Inwagen works with a set of ten constraints. Chief among them for our consideration are: (i) the ‘conviction that mental predicates (like “is in pain”, or “is thinking of Vienna”) require a subject. … a thing, one thing, that is doing the thinking and feeling,’ and (ii) that “such objects—Descartes, you, I—are material objects, in the sense that they are ultimately composed entirely of quarks and electrons,’ These constraints I focused on here are his constraints 7, and 8, respectively, and appear on pages 5–6. Van Inwagen’s others constraints are: (1) a classical or absolute view of the identity relation; (2) that material objects have only spatial dimensions and endure through time; (3) standard classical and modal logics; (4) ‘not adopting a counterpart-theoretical understanding of modal statements about individuals;’ (5) that all material things are composed of material simples that have no proper parts; (6) that it cannot be the case that two or more objects be composed of exactly the same proper parts at the same time; (9) that things do not exist by mere stipulation or convention; (10) that the material simples that compose some complex object do so based only on the spatial and causal relations between those material simples. For a discussion of the different types of materialism concerning minds see John Foster, The Immaterial Self, London: Routledge, 1991
Van Inwagen, Material Beings, p. 82. ‘The xs’ is a technical device for writing about multiple referent subjects much in the way quantified sentences stand in relation to sentences with unitary subjects
Van Inwagen uses a storm as a helpful analogy. A storm constantly takes in new particles and leaves off ones that were integral parts of the storm at some earlier time. While the particles and activity of the storm are dynamic—they are in constant change—the storm itself is quite stable—it moves as a unit and retains integrity over time
By ‘jealous’ van Inwagen refers to the distinctness of a life. In contrast to two waves that can combine to produce one wave of amplitude equal to the sum of the amplitudes of the two originals, the activity of the xs that constitute a life cannot be identical with the activity of the ys that constitute another life and only in rare circumstances do the activities of the xs and ys overlap. Ibid., see especially pp. 88–89
Ibid., p. 94. For example, a carbon atom incorporated into the energy cycle of an organism through the organisms digestive, metabolic and cellular processes is caught up by the organism. A carbon atom in a particle of dust that lands on the nasal epithelium and sometime later is expelled is not caught up in the life of the organism. Organisms display a hierarchy of organization. The cells of a human body, for example, are themselves organisms and yet the simples caught up in the live of a cell are also caught up in the life of the body as a whole. These cells need not be constructed as part of the ongoing life of the entire body. This occurs during blood transfusions, transplants, etc
Waste products of cellular processes, for example, are continuously being removed from the organism’s internal environment
Ibid., p. 145
Ibid, p. 147
However, as van Inwagen argues, these Cartesian arguments do not require the existence of immaterial beings lacking proper parts. Van Inwagen also claims that since I exist and I am a composite object, nihilism must be false
By ‘virtual object’ van Inwagen means what we refer to in common language as an object that is in reality only a conglomeration of simples shaped, and being used, in a particular way. To speak of a part of an organism, then is not always to pick out an actual part that has simples that compose it and constitute its life independent of the life of the organism. It should be understood though, that a virtual object is not an immaterial object. It is an ‘object’ composed of material simples that is not naturally individuated but instead is only demarcated linguistically for ease of reference
While one’s life, ‘is centered in the activity of the simples’ that compose one’s brain, the composition is still virtual, and the brain only a virtual object, because the life of the organism is not fully embodied by the brain. In other words, the brain is a virtual object because the simples that compose it cannot by themselves sustain a life. It seems for van Inwagen, the life of a human organism is centered in the brain in that the activity of the simples that compose a disembrained (and therefore virtual) human body, sustained on life support, would not be the activity of a human life, while the activity of the simples that compose, for example, a disemboweled (and therefore virtual) human body, sustained on life support, would be the activity of a human life. Van Inwagen is open to the possibility that only a portion of the brain is necessary for personal identity, but he asserts that personal identity cannot be a feature of only one material simple, or of only one cell
This unclarity can be viewed as an aspect of a problem of constituent ontologies in general (i.e., How is an entity related to the sum of its parts?)
I will not comment on such a move except to say that it seems dubious to me
All scripture taken from, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973)
These passages from sacred texts of Eastern religions are taken from, Reincarnation, edited by Joseph Head and S.L. Cranston (New York: Julian Press, 1961). For concise, general discussions of many ideas embodied in eastern religions see, Oliver Leaman, Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1999)
‘The survival of one’s death,’ is certainly not a completely unambiguous statement. How this statement should be understood, how it could be made clear and concise, is in an important sense the topic of this paper. Since the conclusion to which I will be arguing informs our understanding of this statement, I will leave the notion vague for the time being
I am not here arguing for self-consciousness as a necessary condition of (human) personhood. The principle could be weakened to, ‘is conscious,’ without substantial change in the discussion that follows. In what follows I presume without argument that ‘is (self-) conscious’ entails, ‘is alive.’ Using van Inwagen’s definition of ‘life,’ what follows can be understood as an attempt to understand the meaning of, ‘the death of p.’
For simplicity I will leave of the qualification ‘or portion thereof’ in what follows, but it should be remembered that van Inwagen does not identify a person with his or her brain
I will not consider here the possibility of identity over time gaps—i.e., personal identity being retained over periods of time during which nothing exists that might constitute or carry that identity. While appeal to personal identity over time gaps in material identity has been offered to solve the problem of the survival of death, , the problems of duplication, either in the survival of death or in the basic notion of diachronic personal identity, are still not solved by such theories
van Inwagen, Material Beings, see esp. pp. 145–149
See Peter van Inwagen, ‘Dualism and Materialism: Athens and Jerusalem?,’ in Faith and Philosophy 12(4): 475–488, 1995, and his, ‘The Possibility of Resurrection,’ op. cit
To be more precise, van Inwagen’s proposal entails the physical or nomological possibility of what is logically impossible. Since logical impossibility entails physical or nomological impossibility, van Inwagen’s proposal entails the physical or nomological possibility of what is physically or nomologically impossible
If the details of digestion are at issue, it seems an analogous story can be told involving some kind of brain surgery that results in Dave’s naked kernel being caught up in the life of Steve
Material Being, op. cit
An adequate treatment of alternative accounts of identity would go too far beyond the scope of this present discussion
In the postscript to ‘The Possibility of Resurrection,’ in The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays,” op. cit., van Inwagen describes his proposal as, ‘a metaphysically possible story,’ p. 50. He goes on to argue, ‘even if the story is not true, even if it gets the “mechanism” of Resurrection wrong, it nevertheless is true—in a way. …God will somehow…preserve a [material] remnant of each person,’ (p. 51) brackets added. This, of course, is no argument for his position
References
Foster, J. (1991). The Immaterial Self. London: Routledge.
Head, J., & Cranston, S. L. (Eds.). (1961). Reincarnation. New York: Julian Press.
Leaman, O. (1999). Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Mayro, G. (1997). Identity and Time. In M. C. Rea (Ed.), Material Constitution: A Reader (pp. 148–172). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Rudder Baker, L. (1995). Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist? Faith and Philosophy, 12(4), 489–504.
van Inwagen, P. (1978). The Possibility of Resurrection. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 9, 114–121.
van Inwagen, P. (1990). Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
van Inwagen, P. (1995). Dualism and Materialism: Athens and Jerusalem? Faith and Philosophy, 12(4), 475–488.
van Inwagen, P. (1998). The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics. Boulder: Westview Press.
van Inwagen, P. (2001). Ontology, Identity, and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
van Inwagen, P. (2002). Metaphysics (2nd ed.). Boulder: Westview Press.
Yandell, K. (1999). Philosophy of Religion, A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anders, P.C. Mind, Mortality and Material Being. SOPHIA 50, 25–37 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0163-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0163-y