Dualism and the Problem of Individuation

Religious Studies 22 (2):263 - 276 (1986)
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Abstract

H. D. Lewis once remarked he did not think ‘any case for immortality can get off the ground if we fail to make a case for dualism’. Lewis vigorously defended both mind body dualism, the theory that minds are nonphysical, spatially unextended things in causal interaction with physical, spatially extended things, as well as the conceivability of an after life. Lewis defended the intelligibility of supposing distinct, individual persons continue existing after bodily death, possibly even after all physical objects pass out of existence. Prominent philosophers such as Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Liebniz, and Reid have subscribed to both the truth of dualism and belief in continued personal existence after bodily death. Descartes' work might even be construed as reversing the order of Lewis' dictum. For Descartes, the case for dualism ‘gets off the ground’ because of the conceivability of an afterlife. Briefly put, Descartes sought to establish that a person is distinct from physical objects on the basis of it being metaphysically possible for a person to exist without his or her body, indeed without there being any physical objects whatever. If A can exist without B, then A is not identical with B. Thus, if it is possible for God to bring it about that I exist and there be no physical objects, I am not a physical object. The purpose of this article is not to develop a case for dualism, nor to query whether the case for immortality can get off the ground assuming nondualist theories of the self. I hope instead to assess a popular objection to dualism, and consequently to a dualist conception of the afterlife, which could be termed the problem of individuation

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Charles Taliaferro
St. Olaf College

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God and the Soul.Antony Flew & Peter Geach - 1970 - Philosophical Quarterly 20 (79):189.
Identity and Essence.Baruch A. Brody - 1980 - Princeton University Press.
Knowledge and Justification.Louis E. Loeb - 1983 - Philosophical Review 92 (3):455.
Identify and Individuation. [REVIEW]W. V. Quine - 1972 - Journal of Philosophy 69 (16):488-497.

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