No Good Reasons To Believe in Dualism

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Are there any good reasons to believe in dualism?

        Dualism, the philosophical theory that states that there are two kinds of substance: mental and physical, is now largely discredited by the world’s leading philosophers.

It first came to prominence through René Descartes in his Meditations as he tried to come to terms with the fact that most of his knowledge was either false or that he did not have enough evidence to believe in it firmly enough.  For many centuries the idea was debated and reclassified, changing slightly from philosopher to philosopher and being totally rejected by others.  The alternative to dualism is monism, the idea that mental and physical substances are one and the same; that is that the mind is or is contained within (in the tissue of), the brain.

        At first it appeared that dualism was indeed a logical conception, as features of the mind and the body seemed very different indeed.  Descartes pointed out that while one could imagine oneself without physical features, it was impossible to imagine oneself without a mind; indeed the very action of attempting this was enough to prove that a mind was present.  This was the basis of Descartes’ theory to draw out basic knowledge that he could not be deceived about.  Due to this distinction it seemed logical to conclude, using Leibniz’s Law, that physical and mental entities were indeed separate.  However, Descartes had made a mistake in assuming that his clear and distinct perceptions of a thing made that thing possible.  For example, I can clearly and distinctly conceive of a unicorn, but that does not mean that they exist.  (Lewis Carroll parodied this in Through the Looking Glass, in which the Red Queen tells Alice she imagines several impossible things before breakfast.  Presumably she has a clear and distinct perception of these things, as when Alice attempts it, she is told she is not trying hard enough.)  Also, I can just as clearly perceive of something not being as of it being, and as something cannot both be and not be, it would seem that this theory for basing something upon an unalterable internal proposition falls down.  So, the argument from clear and distinct perception cannot be used here as it is just as easy to conceive of the mind and body being separate as it is for them to be one and the same.

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        There are many scientific and logical arguments in favour of monism, Occam’s Razor, for example, a theory which asks us to take the simpler solution to a problem over the more complicated theory.  For example, before the biology of animals was worked out scientifically, it was believed that all living creatures had an attribute called vitalism, which kept it alive.  Now we know the biology, we can use this much simpler explanation.   Here it can be applied easily: obviously it is simpler to believe in one substance than two, one of which does not conform to the ...

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