Written by Peadar Kelly

Consider for a moment that you are holding a lump of clay in your hands. Later, you sculpt this clay into the shape of a statue. The clay is the constituting matter, while the statue is constituted by said matter. By shaping this quantity of clay into a statue, you have seemingly created an entirely new object. Intuitively, these two different objects cannot be in the same place at the same time, but is that not the case here? After all, if you decided that you were fed up with your statue and squashed it down, you would once again be holding nothing but a lump of clay in your hands. We must ask ourselves the question: Is the constituting matter identical to the object it constitutes and if not, are they two different objects? This, we can describe as a metaphysical puzzle. As metaphysicians, we are concerned with the fundamental features of reality, constantly asking those ‘big-picture’ questions. Therefore, it is to be expected that we encounter such puzzles.

The lump of clay and the statue is a ubiquitous example of a particularly elusive puzzle. It is the puzzle of ‘material constitution’, or more specifically, ‘apparent coincidence.’ In this case, one object was created using all the parts of the other (the statue made up entirely of clay). Therefore, every inch of both the clay and statue are seemingly the same. However, Leibniz’s Law states that if two objects are identical then they must have all their properties in common. So, if, say, the lump of clay and the statue were one in the same, they would have to share all properties. Can we convincingly accept this to be the case? The answer is “no” because the clay undoubtedly possesses properties that the statue does not (and vice-versa). This notion of two objects apparently coexisting is where the puzzle truly lays. This is the contradiction that we, as metaphysicians, are interested in.

With all this considered, there are many solutions to this puzzle that we can examine but I will focus on three of these theories. Theodore Sider identifies four assumptions that we make in this puzzle of constitution, namely creation, survival, existence and absurdity. He states that, for this puzzle to be resolved, one of these assumptions must be rejected. Whatever assumption is brought into doubt, depends on the theory in question. I will explain the theories and their objections, underpinned by the paradox of the lump of clay and the statue.

The theory of coincidence or cohabitation challenges the assumption of ‘absurdity’ — the general principle that two objects cannot be in the same place at the same time (an ‘absurd’ idea to argue against). The claim is that, despite sharing the same spatial location and matter, the statue and the lump coincide. In essence, there are two objects. This hypothesis is grounded by the idea that ‘constitution is not identity’ — the statue is constituted by, but not identical to, the lump. Wasserman describes this as the ‘most popular’ and ‘standard’ response to the puzzle. He also states that the difference in their ‘non-categorical properties’ is what allows the lump and the statue to coexist. These properties are their matter and parts, which both the lump and the statue share. However, if I were to try to run through a wall, I would crash into it because we are different sorts of things.

Sider gives two objections to the cohabitation theory. Firstly, it claims that when you decide to squash your statue, the lump remains, even though there were two objects before. Is the statue more fragile than the lump? Surely not, as they are made of the exact same matter. Secondly, he questions the very idea that the same parts could make up two different things. He states that it undermines the concept of a part. Supposing that something is over and above its parts, for Sider, is too ‘absurd’ an idea to accept.

The just-matter theory rejects the assumption of ‘creation’ — the thesis that you (as the sculptor) really made the statue, that it didn’t exist beforehand. The Just-Matter theorist would argue that you merely rearranged the lump into a particular shape, not creating anything but simply changing its properties. The theory is based on the idea that there are only ‘hunks’ of materials arranged in different ways. This infers that there is only matter i.e. the lump. Dr Nick Effingham, in an interview with Dr von Solodkoff, describes this theory as ‘under-discussed’ in the academic literature. That said, he also provides us with two ways of understanding the ‘just-matter’ theory. On one hand, it denies the existence of the statue altogether. On the other hand, is the more plausible perspective that the ‘statue’ might just be what we call a particular period of the lump of clay’s life. He describes this as a’ phase sortal’ and uses it to demonstrate how, like being a kitten is only a temporary phase of a cat’s life, the statue is but a phase of the lump’s existence.

This theory may fit our intuition that there is only one object in question. It is also ontologically parsimonious. This means it does not postulate the existence of objects that are surplus to requirement (as per Ockham’s Razor). However, it does bring about problems such as the counterintuitive nature of the claim that a sculptor does not ‘create’ anything. Moreover, the theory indicates that a statue is just a collection of modified matter and that it exists so long as the lump does. This means that the statue exists long after it is squashed. To consolidate this idea, we can use the example of a totalled car. We bring it to the scrapyard, crush it down and sell its parts. In this situation we would usually say the car was destroyed, but not according to the just-matter theorist, because the matter remains. While this seems counterintuitive, the just-matter theorist might point to our definition of ‘destruction’ as our own pitfall. We wouldn’t start calling traditionally ‘destroyed’ cars perfectly fine in our everyday vernacular, but we, as metaphysicians, would know that the car still exists.

The nihilistic approach is to reject the assumption of ‘existence’. The theory of mereological nihilism challenges the existence of both the lump of clay and the statue. The view of such a theorist is that the only things in existence are ‘mereological simples.’ These are objects that have no proper parts. These would be the ultimate, fundamental physical particles that make up the universe. Things such as statues and lumps would only be made up of copious amounts of simples arranged ‘lump-wise’ or statue-wise’. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is no lump or statue, but rather they are not single objects as we know them. They are instead collections of microscopic particles. This theory is heavily associated Peter Unger and Peter van Inwagen. van Inwagen’s version differs in one key area. He argues for the existence of living organisms, making them the only composite objects. The notable advantage here is that it allows for the existence of people. Nevertheless, denying the existence of both the objects, in general, clearly has its virtues.

The main argument in favour of mereological nihilism is that there is no threat of having the objects in the same place at the same time. That said, it goes against our intuition of at least one object being in existence. It may seem too radical a notion to simply forget all we know about objects — have we been miscounting them all our lives? Furthermore, it can be easily challenged by bringing in to question our knowledge of the smallest particles in physics. This wouldn’t be unreasonable as what we believe to be the ‘simples’ in the universe has changed several times throughout the years with the advancement of science. Even still, do such simples exist at all or can anything really be divided?

Overall, I find these three theories to be compelling in different ways and they are certainly internally consistent in their offering of solutions to the puzzle. How compelling any such theory may be to you, depends on your willingness to let go of the various innate assumptions associated with apparent coincidence.

Johnston, M., 1992. Constitution is not Identity. Mind, Volume 101, pp. 89–105.

Sider, T., 2014. Constitution. In: Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Unger, P., 1979. There are no Ordinary Things. Synthese, Volume 41, pp. 117–154.

Van Inwagen, 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Wasserman, R., 2017. Material Constitution. [Online]. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/material-constitution
[Accessed 10 November 2020].

Written by Yifan Wang

Are humans different from robots? Most people will give a positive answer without hesitation. Unlike robots that are merely machines, people have minds. But what exactly does ‘have minds’ mean? Dualists believe that the mind is a soul, an immaterial entity that coexists and intimately connected with the material body. Physicalists insist that the mind is a subclass of the physical entity and people are just functional bodies. Both views believe in the existence of bodies. The question is whether there really are intangible entities, ‘minds’ or souls, that exist independently of the bodies? Which facts or features of humans cannot be explained well by physicalists, but need to posit the existence of souls to give a better explanation? What makes us feel that we are not only a merely physical body like a robot? If we can find a convincing human feature that the robot does not have, it would be the reason to believe we have souls. One possible answer is love. People extensively describe, observe and experience love in daily lives, but it seems that robots do not have such emotions.

What is love?

Before examining whether it is necessary to posit the existence of souls to explain love, one needs first to figure out what love is. Love is a feeling or emotion of one’s first-person perspective, and love has two aspects. One is the behavioural aspect: people will behaviorally respond when they aware of the feeling of love. For example, people in love want to pursue or be close to the one they loved, speaking love words and hugging or kissing that person. The other aspect of love is the sensation, what it feels like on the inside. You have a certain feeling of falling in love, a special inner experience. Your heart is pounding, and your blood is racing.

The behaviour aspect of love

Steven Spielberg’s science fiction film, A.I. (2001), describes the story of a humanoid robot kid, David. David was ‘adopted’ by Monica, whose son suffered from a rare disease and was in a state of suspended animation. The activation instruction of David is to love Monica like a human child to relieve her pain. David wanted to accompany Monica anytime and anywhere, and he even acted jealously towards Monica’s husband. It is not difficult to imagine a robot, a pure machine, can behave in a loving way. Dualists might argue that David loves Monica only because the engineer programmed this instruction, and his love is not spontaneous. It requires an external impulse to explain David’s love, and for humans, this impulse is the soul. However, why could not the instructions only be built-in, just like David might have his built-in instructions? Instead of assuming the existence of the soul, why don’t we explain it by evolution and biology? Physiological processes, such as genetics, evolutionary advantages, and reproductions, lead babies to be born with some built-in instructions. This is innate psychology that allows people to start learning and adapting to behave purposefully. Therefore, even if we need some sort of instructions, all of this might still simply be the result of some complex physical processes, and there is no need to appeal to an immaterial entity to explain.

The sensation aspect of love

Although physicalists can explain behavioural aspects of human emotions well, so far, there is no good interpretation of sensation or the inner experience. Certain characteristic experiences go along with having any given emotion. There is what it feels like to you when you are depressed or worried or joyful or in love. In other words, our experience has qualitative properties. For example, when you see something red, there is a certain feeling of the red inside of you, and such feeling is quite different when you see something blue. Though a machine has learned all of the physical facts about colours and could distinguish red from blue by different light frequencies, it seems to fail to know what exactly red or blue feels like. Intuitively, no qualitative property goes on inside the robot. Although David tried to eat Monica’s cooking to make her happy, he was expressionless during the meal, as if he did not know the taste of a particular food. David’s love is paranoid, he cannot realize how his actions might embarrass Monica. Philosophers use the term qualia to describe the qualitative or subjective aspect of the experience, including bodily sensations (such as pain and hunger), emotions (like love, envy, or fear), and perceptual experiences like hallucinations. Qualia seems to be a convincing feature to support the existence of the soul. Dualists argue that besides the body, one must have immaterial soul operating the qualia, or consciousness. But how? How could two distinct entities interact with each other, and how to explain the causal relations between the mind (soul) and body? Some dualists further posit an infinite and perfect God who has the supreme power to connect the souls with the bodies. In contrast, physicalists believe that qualia and consciousness can be well explained with the development of neurology. Although the current physiological knowledge cannot explain the mental states, it seems reasonable to believe that we can discover the answer through the standard methods of cognitive science and neuroscience.

Qualia

Nevertheless, are physicalists overconfident? Even if there are sufficient reasons to speculate that the physical system of the brain gives rise to qualia, we still cannot understand how and why it does so. For instance, by giving the identification of heat with the motion of molecules, scientists could easily explain that the motion of molecules plays a causal role to heat. However, even if we knew love is to be identified with some neural or functional state, there would still something left unexplained. Suppose, for example, that we precisely identified that the firing of ‘nerve fibre x’ causes the feeling of love. There are still some remaining problems: Why does our experience of love feel the way that it does? Why does the firing of ‘nerve fibre x’ rise to one particular feeling rather than another? Our lives are full of different qualitative properties of experiences so that it is difficult to find a paradigm theory to explain. In addition, qualia are a feeling of one’s first-person perspective. It is almost impossible to determine whether my feelings for love are the same as yours. Suppose Mia and Tom share the same bag of chocolates. To Mia, chocolate tastes sweet, while it tastes bitter to Tom. But Mia has learned and used the word ‘bitter’ to describe the tasting of sweet since she was a child. Under this circumstance, although Mia and Tom both describe that chocolate is bitter, their respective qualia about chocolate are inverted.

The problems faced by physicalists suggest that our instincts about robots might be wrong. It is possible that robots also have specific experiences of seeing, angering, and loving, which just different from human feelings. For example, when the robot kid David was eating, he could feel a particular burning sensation; or his feeling of love might be a strong sense of possession. In this way, humans and robots could both have qualia. Since physicalists have not yet given a reasonable explanation for qualia, maybe we should accept the dualist argument about immaterial souls, then the robots may also have souls. This conclusion completely subverted our cognition, but before physicalists fully explain the qualia, this may well be a possibility.

Baker, L. R. (2018) ‘Constitutionalism: alternative to substance dualism’, in Loose, J., Menuge, A J. and Moreland, J. P. (ed.) The blackwell companion to substance dualism. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons Inc, pp. 341–350.

Descartes, R. (2017) Meditation on first philosophy. 2nd edn. Edited by J. Cottingham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heil, J. (2012) Philosophy of mind: a contemporary introduction. New York: Routledge.

Kagan, S. (2012) Death. Yale University Press. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npgh8 (Downloaded 22 October 2020).

Kind, A. ‘Qualia’ in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161–0002. Available at: https://www.iep.utm.edu/ (Accessed 11 November 2020).

Written by Georgia Egleston

The Special Composition Question, also known as the Question of Material Composition is based on several theories that analyze and attempt to answer what the criteria are for composing a further object. The esoteric language used in this topic of metaphysics is quite complex and can take a while to understand. Nonetheless, I will do my best to explain the most significant terminology throughout this piece. Peter Van Inwagen’s ‘Material Beings’ deals with this Question of Material Composition in terms of composing a whole object with two or more parts. Van Inwagen uses the word ‘part’ as a mereological term. This refers to how many objects or parts it takes to make another whole object and how these parts should be in contact. For example, how many pairs of shoes does it take to make a ‘pile’. Should these shoes be touching or could they just be near each other? These are the kind of questions the Special Composition Question provokes. Mereology is the study of parts and the whole they compose. Our intuition tells us that four legs and a tabletop make a table and that four walls and a roof make a house. However, I think we can all agree that a birdhouse and a pair of shoes do not compose a further object. The Question of Material Composition seeks to find the reason for this. What makes the four legs and a tabletop a further object but a birdhouse and a pair of shoes not? Is it because of the form of contact they are in? For example, are they just touching or are they fastened together using glue or screws? These are some of the questions that arise throughout this topic. It is important to note that the Question of Material Composition does not analyze the concept of composition but the relationship between properties that are linked together with regards to composition.

Contact and fastening view

The contact view is an intuitive one. It states that xs compose a y if and only if the xs are in contact with each other (touching). When we imagine a pile of shoes, this contact view appears to answer our question, however, there is a problem with this. How many pair of shoes composes a pile? How must the pairs of shoes be positioned? Do they have to lay on top of each other or can there just be a few pairs of shoes in contact with each other (beside instead of on top)? Another issue with the contact view is that it implies that by people shaking hands, they are composing a further object, which we know is not the case. In addition to this, it also implies that protons and electrons do not compose atoms. We also know this is not true. With this view, all the scientific knowledge we acquire would render false. Hence, taking on this answer to the Special Composition Question would be difficult to justify as it is so contradictory to science and its research. These counterintuitive claims make the contact view seem implausible. It may explain some cases but philosophers are determined to find a better view or answer to the Special Composition Question. That brings us to the fastening view. This view states that xs compose a y if and only if the xs are all fastened together. This claim is also an intuitive one. One could use glue, screws, buttons and so on to fasten things together. Nonetheless, if two people’s hands were fastened together after shaking hands we would not consider this a composed object. Science tells us that everything is made up of atoms, which are composed of particles. Particles do not touch each other in order to make up atoms, and hence, this view would suggest that atoms do not exist. This claim is very counterintuitive and so we are inclined to disregard it. It is not clear how these properties or objects must be fastened together. Both the contact view and the fastening view offer intuitive claims, however, they are both very vague on the degree of contact that is required.

Mereological Nihilism and Organicism

As mentioned above, mereology is the study of parts and the whole they compose. Nihilism states that xs never compose a y. This view suggests that there are no mereologically complex objects, only simples. Simples have no proper parts, which means they are not made up of anything. They are like the building blocks of the world. Therefore, with regards to this particular view, these mereological simples are the only things to actually exist in this world. Everything else we believe to exist is simply just mereological simples being rearranged into shapes. This is a clean and straightforward view, however, it does seem very unnatural and counterintuitive. It is difficult to go along with a view that says that atoms, trees, mountains or animals do not exist. This completely contradicts and undermines what us humans see and believe. That aside, it is still worth considering. Despite the counterintuitive nature of the nihilist approach to the Special Composition Question, there is one other way that could potentially justify it. Instead of saying ‘there is a tree over there’, a nihilist would say ‘There are some simples arranged tree-wise over there’. This way we are not totally denying the appearance or presence of a ‘tree’. Mereological organicism is quite similar to nihilism in the sense that it suggests that living beings do exist, however, any other object with parts do not, for example, chairs, trees, cars. For this reason, people might appeal to organicism over nihilism. It would be implausible that us human beings do not even exist to most people. Consequently, mereological organicism provides a slightly more convincing theory. This is how organicism would be defined: xs compose a y if and only if the activity of the xs constitutes a life. Nonetheless, there are still counterintuitive claims with regards to this approach, hence, making it difficult to take on board.

Mereological Universalism

Another answer to the Special Composition Question is Mereological Universalism. This view states that xs compose a y if and only if the xs are not overlapping. According to Universalism, composition is ‘automatic’. It claims that ‘whenever there are non-overlapping xs, there is an object composed of those xs’. This view of Universalism basically suggests that anything composes a further object. My bed, an aeroplane, and the Eiffel Tower compose an object. This is quite an appealing view in my opinion as it is very open and limitless. However, this could be controversial as there are no limits as to what composes an object. There are no regulations so it is an ambitious view that is difficult to manage. Nevertheless, both these views offer very contrasting yet insightful and intriguing approaches to answer the Special Composition Question.

Brute Composition

Ultimately, there is the answer of Brute Composition in response to the Special Composition Question. This is considered the craziest response to the Special Composition Question. It says that there is no answer to the question at all. This is also a very unsatisfying claim and compared to the other in-depth theories mentioned above this sounds absurd. Regardless, there is no reason to completely disregard this answer. If one was to consider every other answer to the Special Composition question and didn’t feel like they were truly satisfied with any of them, they could come to the conclusion that the Brute Composition answer is the most accurate for them.

Bibliography

1. Carroll, J. W. and Markosian, N. (2010) An Introduction to Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy).

2. Carroll, J. W. and Markosian, N. (2010) An Introduction to Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy).

3. Ney, A., 2014. Metaphysics: An Introduction. Taylor & Francis.

4. Carroll, J. W. and Markosian, N. (2010) An Introduction to Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy).

Written by Julia Brick

If you have a lump of clay and then you mould it into the shape of a statue, is that statue only one object? Or is it instead two objects, a statue and the lump of clay that composes it? This question is the basis of a metaphysical problem called the Puzzle of Material Constitution. In this post, I will describe this problem and discuss one solution to it called Four-Dimensionalism.

A statue and lump of clay is an example used to illustrate a metaphysical problem called the Puzzle of Material Constitution. This problem poses the question asking whether an object and the material that composes it, is one object or two. Those who think that a statue and the clay that composes it is only one object are called monists, while those who think that the statue and clay compose more than one object are called pluralists.

Identity

One way of approaching this problem is to consider identity, asking whether the clay is identical to the statue. From this monist point of view, when Clay materially constitutes Statue, they are identical. This view holds that this means they are simply the same thing. The main problem with the monist identity view is that for two things to be completely identical, they must share all of the same properties. Those who disagree with this view will point out that the statue and the clay do not share all of their properties, and are therefore not identical. For example, a lump of clay has the property that it can be squashed and continue to be a lump of clay, whereas if the statue is squashed it ceases to be a statue. It is essential to Statue that it is shaped like a statue, while Clay does not have this property. Therefore the statue and the lump of clay have differing properties and cannot be identical.

Cohabitation

The pluralist perspective also faces significant problems, for instance, the issues that arise when assuming Cohabitation. Cohabitation assumes that Statue and Clay are two distinct objects that exist at the same time in the same place. Say this is the case, and the statue and clay are squashed by the sculptor. After the squashing, there is no more statue, there is only a squashed piece of clay. The clay still exists while the statue has been destroyed. This presents a problem, because how is it that the same amount of force can be applied to two different objects, and one of them is so completely destroyed that it ceases to exist, while the other continues on? It does not make sense for the statue to be significantly more fragile than the lump of clay, because they are composed of exactly the same matter. Cohabitation as a view must be rejected because it is apparent that it is not possible for two distinct wholes to be composed of only one set of parts.

Temporal parts

As there appear to be convincing arguments against both views, the Puzzle of Material Constitution seems to have no clear answer. However, there is an argument from the pluralist perspective that does not require the statue and the clay to share all of the same properties; or to violate the principle that two objects cannot share one set of parts. Conee and Sider describe this view, which is called Four-Dimensionalism. They write that this requires thinking of time as a fourth dimension. According to this theory, objects have temporal parts.

Temporal parts only exist at one point in time and are temporally smaller than a whole thing. These temporal parts are like slices of time that when put together make up something whole. There is a temporal part of you that existed yesterday, another temporal part of you that existed five minutes ago and yet another temporal part of you that exists right now. Put together, these slices compose you. These temporal parts do not have to share exactly the same properties in order to compose the same object. For example, if you had gotten a paper cut a week ago that has since healed, there is a temporal part of you from a week ago that has a paper cut, but the temporal part of you that exists now does not have that paper cut. Both of these temporal parts compose you, even though they do not share exactly the same properties.

Four-Dimensionalism and the statue and clay

Four-Dimensionalism can then be applied to the statue and the clay example to provide an answer to the Puzzle of Material Constitution. At first, there is a piece of clay that has not been moulded into any defined shape. For all the time that the clay spends like this, it is simply clay. Its temporal parts during this period would compose a piece of clay. Then the sculptor moulds the clay into the shape of a statue for ten minutes, before squashing it back into shapeless clay. The statue existed only for those ten minutes that it was statue shaped. The clay existed before the statue existed and resumed its existence once the statue was squashed. According to this view, Clay and Statue are different objects, but Statue is a part of Clay in the same way that a person’s foot is an object that is still a part of their body.

Four-Dimensionalism solves the problem presented by the Cohabitation view as well as addressing the problem of identity. The problem of Cohabitation involved two distinct objects being composed of only one set of parts, while the two objects had distinct properties from each other. However, from the Four-Dimensional perspective, Statue and Clay are not composed of the same parts, as they each have their own temporal parts as well as their spatial parts. The piece of clay has more temporal parts than the statue, as it existed before as well as after the statue. As such they clearly do not share exactly the same parts and can be considered two distinct objects.

The Four-Dimensionalism perspective addresses the monist problem of identity by disagreeing with the premise that the clay and statue are the same object. Four-Dimensionalism says that the statue and the clay have different properties because they are not the same object and are not identical.

The Puzzle of Material Constitution questions whether a statue made of clay is one object or two. Those who think it is one object are called monists, while those who think there are two objects are called pluralists. Monists face the problem of identity, as it is implausible for the clay and the statue to be identical, because they do not share all of their properties. The pluralist perspective encountered a similar problem, in that it is not possible for two separate objects to occupy the same space and share exactly the same matter if one of them can be entirely snuffed out of existence by exactly the same force that does not have an impact on the existence of the other object. The Four-Dimensionalism perspective introduced temporal parts, which solved both problems, showing that as the clay and the statue have different parts to each other that were previously overlooked before we took the dimension of time into discussion.

Conee, E. & Sider, T. 2015. Chapter 7: Constitution. Riddles of Existence : A Guided Tour of Metaphysics: New Edition. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Edwards, F. 2013. Problem of Material Constitution [Online]. Youtube.com. Available: https://youtu.be/_HVkeNUV-3M [Accessed 13th November 2020].

Paul, L. A. 2010. The Puzzles of Material Constitution. Philosophy Compass, 5, 579–590.

Written by Nualadh Ní Mhurchadha

One of the most enduring questions which philosophers have been asking in the history of Philosophy is: “Do people have minds which are separate from their bodies, or are the two just parts of one thing?”. Often, this question is phrased simply as “Do people have souls?”. In Metaphysics, and more specifically Ontology, the study of what exists, this is known as the ‘Mind-Body’ problem. One possible answer may lie with Consciousness.

There have been many attempts to answer this question, and two main responses have arisen so far. The first of these approaches is Dualism, which can be broken down into groups such as Substance Dualism, and Property Dualism.

Substance Dualism says that mind is separate from the body, and it is not just a different thing, but a different sort of thing. Substance Dualists do not dispute that we live in a physical universe, but maintains that there are objects which are not made of any physical material. These objects are not affected by any force of interest to scientists, and yet, they have interactions with the physical world. This is the sort of object that Substance Dualists believe souls to be.

Property Dualists say instead that it is all the same sort of thing, but that our minds and our bodies are different parts of who we are as whole people. This could be thought of as the difference between flowing water and ice. While water and ice behave in clearly distinct ways, they are still fundamentally made of the same substance. In a similar way, Property Dualists will say that our bodies behave in a physical way, and our souls behave in a non-physical way.

Whichever group they fall into, Dualists believe that while bodies are physical things, minds are immaterial, which is to say that minds are not formed of matter that you could touch and measure, no matter how closely you looked. Instead, minds are in a state of existence separate to the world we experience, leaving them free from the physical laws that govern our lives.

The second type of approach taken by those trying to find an answer to the Mind-Body problem is called Monism, which says that everything that exists is made of the same fundamental stuff. One of the popular points of view within this approach is Physicalism, which says that everything is made of physical, material substances. The view of Physicalists is that humans have a mind or soul which is not separate from the body, and whatever a mind or a soul may be, it can be explained purely in terms of the physical properties of matter. Most arguments found in Dualism are made in response to the claims of Physicalists.

Before proceeding any further, it is important to clarify exactly what is meant by ‘mind’ or ‘soul’. These terms are loaded with connotations and preconceptions about what they mean, and, unfortunately, different answers to the Mind-Body problem define them in different, mutually exclusive ways, and so for the purposes of this discussion of the topic, the mind or soul will simply refer to something non-physical whose existence explains some aspect of human experience.

The question then becomes “Should one believe that souls exist?” A Dualist would say that we should, in opposition to a Physicalist, who would say we should not. But how would one even begin to answer that question? Science can explain why we should believe in many things, from mundane things like chairs and sunshine, to things that can not be seen, like quarks or radiation. But these are all physical things, and if the object of consideration is an immaterial soul, then it seems that scientific inquiry can offer no guidance here. It is for this reason that the Mind-Body problem belongs to the field of Philosophy, which is an a priori discipline. This means that knowledge is sought through logical deduction, like in Mathematics, rather than from the measurement, experience, or observation of science.

How then to deduce the existence of the soul? The primary style of argument which is used is known as Inference to the Best Explanation. This entails considering the explanation being offered against any other explanations which have been put forward. Whichever seems to give the best explanation for the way the world appears to be is the one which should be accepted and believed, at least until another, better explanation is put forth. Therefore, to accept the claims of Dualism, that people do have souls, there must be something that is better explained with the existence of souls than without, since that is the primary difference between Dualism and Physicalism.

Many arguments have attempted to offer some such thing best explained by the existence of souls, and as mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, one such thing is human consciousness. As explained by Shelley Kagan, there is a qualitative aspect to the way the world is experienced that goes beyond mere perception. Kagan says that there is a difference between seeing red, and what it feels like to see red. This part of the experience is called qualia, and consciousness can be thought of as the capacity to experience qualia. One argument then goes like this; One can explain in physical terms how light may interact with a surface, how it might be focused as it enters the eye, and how that light might then be converted into an electrical signal to be carried to the brain. But what about the qualia? Does any physical explanation lay out how it feels to see your favourite colour? This sort of qualitative experience seems beyond any purely physical object, like a robot or a camera or a rock, but is self-evident in humans. There must be something about humans then that sets them apart and allows for consciousness. That thing is the soul, and it is through the soul that consciousness is achieved.

While Kagan believes that there is strong reasoning at work in this argument, he does not accept it as a reason to accept the existence of souls. While there are arguments from Physicalists which attempt to explain qualia based in physical terms, Kagan believes that this Dualist argument from consciousness falls flat on it’s own basis.

Kagan points out that the existence of souls does not do a good job, or really any job at all, at explaining qualia or consciousness either. The soul theory of consciousness tells us nothing about how a soul produced consciousness. The argument really boils down to ‘Souls grant us consciousness, just because’. This may not be any worse than the Physicalist point of view, if we grant that there may not be a good Physicalist explanation for qualia, but it is the Dualist who is asserting the existence of an immaterial soul, and the onus is on them to provide a compelling reason to believe in that existence. So far, Kagan believes, this is unsuccessful.

There may be satisfactory Physicalist explanations for consciousness after all, however. They are often complicated, but one explanation is that while there is no clear way to directly connect the simple mechanics of sensory perception to qualia, we can instead turn to psychology for a solution. Psychology can describe mental states which arise from physical conditions in the brain. The experience of perception can result in a change in the mental state, and it is this change which we experience as qualia or consciousness. This view is known as Functionalism.

The Mind-Body problem is notable in how long it has endured under scrutiny and examination. Many different attempts have been made on both sides, but none have yet been found which succeeds at convincing philosophers overwhelmingly in one direction or the other. The argument from consciousness presented here is special however, as it manages to make simple and understandable claims which physicalists find difficult to form clear objections to. The physicalist is forced to give a response which is much more complex and obtuse, and this stands as a testament to the persuasiveness of the argument from Consciousness. While not a definitive answer, it is a part of our journey for understanding.

Bibliography

Shelley Kagan, Death, Yale University Press, 2012.

Thomas W. Polger, Neil A. Manson, The Continuum Companion to Metaphysics, Continuum, 2012.