Strengths and weakness of Dualism

Dualism is the idea that there exists both body and mind, distinct from one another, but linked in some way. Dualists believe that the mind determines our personality and the body is an outer shell for the real self. They believe that the body is contingent and therefore is destined for decay, but that the mind associated with higher realities, such as truth, goodness and justice is immortal.

“I think therefore I am”

René Descartes

There are two main types of dualism, substance dualism, which holds that the mind or soul is a separate non-physical entity and property dualism, according to which there is no soul distinct from the body, but only one thing, the person, who has two irreducibly different types of properties, mental and physical. Substance dualism leaves room for the idea that the soul might be able to exist separately from the body, either before birth or after death, property dualism does not. However property dualism allows for both the mental and physical relationship of cause and effect to work harmoniously together. The cause of one event may be described as a physical event in the brain and under another event, as a desire, emotion or thought. Substance dualism however has been largely dropped out of contemporary discussions. Few philosophers now find the idea of the soul immaterial coherent or productive.

Join now!

The philosopher who spoke most about dualism was René Descartes. He believed that everything non-physical, all feelings and sensations that can be described but cannot be located physically become part of your mind/soul. Descartes’ dualism, known as Cartesian Dualism, rested on very certain ideas. He stated that the mind and body were two very different things and that all substances have a property of a special nature. For example, the property of the mind is consciousness ‘whose whole essence is to think’ and therefore takes up no space, whereas the properties of bodily or material substances are length, breath ...

This is a preview of the whole essay