Abstract
I argue that property dualists cannot hold that minds are physical substances. The focus of my discussion is a property dualism that takes qualia to be sui generis features of reality.
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Notes
E.g., Kim (2005) and Jackson (1982). Chalmers had previously underscored that his property dualism does not require substance dualism, and expressed a doubt regarding Cartesian substance dualism (1997, pp. 124–125). But he is currently “reasonably sympathetic but agnostic” about substance dualism (email of Aug., 2009). It is important to bear in mind that his (1997) does not claim that substance physicalism is correct; nor does it deny it. In any case, this paper explores the plausibility of a (PD) that accepts substance physicalism, a view that many who find Naturalistic Dualism compelling are sympathetic to.
Of course, there are substance dualists out there, e.g., John Foster, E.J. Lowe and Dean Zimmerman; but substance dualism is all too often dismissed as “fringe” by mainstream philosophy of mind. There is a presumption in favor of substance physicalism.
A note on terminology. By “substance” I do not mean “substratum” but the entire object, broadly construed to include both physical and non-physical substances. Some use the two expressions interchangeably. By “property dualism” I have in mind positions that take experiential properties to be ontologically basic, although they may lawfully depend upon physical properties. There is a weaker view that some call “property dualism” that is associated with non-reductive physicalism in which mental properties do not reduce to physical ones. Unlike the stronger form of property dualism, non-reductive physicalists can accept token identity and logical/metaphysical supervenience. Although the stronger form of property dualism is my focus, much of what I argue in this paper applies to the weaker form as well. I extend the argument of this paper to the case of non-reductive physicalism in Schneider (ms., in progress) and Schneider (forthcoming).
Indeed, even the proponent of immanent universals will appeal to non-physical particulars to the extent that she holds the commonly held view that events are property instantiations.
Like many, I believe the strongest case for property dualism stems from the phenomenon of consciousness. Chalmers’ case for property dualism is very influential; I shall make heavy use of his view. For an interesting case for a property dualism involving intentional properties see Plantinga (2006). Maybe a dualism about one would amount to a dualism about the other—i.e., some have questioned the common view that intentional and phenomenal states are truly separable (Graham et al. 2009).
Lowe’s own approach to substance is neo-Aristotelian. On this view substances are sui generis and are typed by certain universals (for a survey of this type of position see Loux 2002). The reader may naturally ask why I do not discuss this conception alongside the bundle and substratum views. First, notice that the main arguments of the paper seem to apply to it; insofar as minds are typed by their qualitative properties they would be non-physical, although, as per Aristotle’s position, they would be part of the natural world. Second, the neo-Aristotelian view simply doesn’t strike me as a genuinely physicalist one in any case. After all, Lowe himself is offering it in the context of substance dualism. For it takes the mind, self or person to be sui generis and distinct from the body. Even setting aside the arguments of this paper, the proponent of (SP) would not want to appeal to this sort of position.
E.g., see Chalmers discussion of a similar example in his 1997, p. 124.
Of course Descartes was not a bundle theorist. But if the reader will bear with me, I shall still call this bundle view “Cartesian” to underscore that it holds that the mind, self or person is wholly immaterial, and is unable to bear any physical properties. And physical substances are unfit to bear mental properties.
To keep things simple, I’ll speak of the physical substance in question as being the brain. Of course if the mind is extended then the physical substance in question goes beyond the brain as well.
John Hawthorne suggests biting the bullet in O’Leary-Hawthorne (1995).
Although it is more common for trope theorists to accept the bundle theory C.B. Martin held a substratum theory of tropes (1980).
On this view the substratum, not the object directly, instantiates the properties.
See Locke 1689, II, xxiii, Sect. 2.
In the case of the hybrid view, the mind has certain physical properties; but I am assuming that the naturalistic substance dualist would want her psychophysical laws to link properties of the mind and the brain, rather than linking qualia to physical properties of the mind. For in this former case, there would be psychophysical relations linking the two substances that hold with nomological necessity.
This is a kind of “emergent substance dualism,” I suppose.
Those familiar with Kim’s discussion of the pairing problem may note that that the pairing problem does not arise either: unlike Cartesian minds, hybrid minds are in spacetime (Kim 2005).
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jose Bermudez and Dean Zimmerman for helpful discussion, and to Paul Audi, Mark Bickhard, David Chalmers, George Graham, John Heil, Michael Huemer, Jaegwon Kim, Brandon Towl, Jerry Vision and an anonymous reviewer for their very informative written comments on this paper. I am also very grateful to the audience at a summer institute in the metaphysics of mind at the Washington University at St. Louis for helpful discussion. Finally, thanks to the NEH for financial support.
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Schneider, S. Why property dualists must reject substance physicalism. Philos Stud 157, 61–76 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9618-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9618-9