The Revival of Substance Dualism

Howard Robinson

doi:10.18290/rf21691-4

Howard Robinson Central European University, Austria https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2972-5692

Keywords: Swinburne, dualism, personal identity, epiphenomenalism

Abstract

I argue in this essay that Richard Swinburne’s revised version of Descartes’ argument in chapter 5 of his Are We Bodies or Souls? does not quite get him to the conclusion that he requires, but that a modified version of his treatment of personal identity will do the trick. I will also look critically at his argument against epiphenomenalism, where, once again, I share his conclusion but have reservations about the argument.

Author Biography

Howard Robinson, Central European University, Austria

Howard Robinson, University Professor of Philosophy at the Central European University

References

Madell, Geoffrey. The Identity of the Self. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981.

Robinson, Howard. “A Dualist Account of Embodiment.” In The Case for Dualism, edited by John R. Smythies and John Beloff, 43–57. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1989.

Robinson, Howard. “Dualism.” In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Stephen Stitch and Ted A. Warfield. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.

Robinson, Howard. “Dualism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Accessed September 25, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism.

Robinson, Howard. “Substance Dualism and Its Rationale.” In Free Will and Modern Science, edited by Richard Swinburne, 158–77. Oxford: OUP (for the British Academy), 2011.

Robinson, Howard. From Knowledge Argument to Mental Substance: Resurrecting the Mind. Cambridge: CUP, 2016.

Swinburne, Richard. Are We Bodies or Souls?. Oxford: OUP, 2019.