Dualism
Howard Robinson · 2023 · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Summary
Reviews substance and property dualism, Cartesian arguments, and the standard physicalist replies.
Why it matters here
The reference for what mind-body dualism means and why most contemporary philosophers reject it.
Linked claims
The brain as transducer, not source — proposed by James, Bergson, Huxley. Compatible with neural correlates but harder to falsify.
If consciousness is basic, the 'hard problem' dissolves. The cost is a major break with the standard physicalist picture.
From Berkeley to Kastrup: matter is appearance within a more fundamental mind. Coherent, ancient, contested.
Descartes' view that mind and body are two distinct substances that somehow interact. The most intuitive position; also the one neuroscience has worked hardest to discredit.
NDEs, past-life cases, terminal lucidity and mediumship cluster suggestively. Each line is contested; together they earn a hearing.
Related evidence hubs
What consciousness is, how it relates to brains, and whether it's basic to reality.
The nature of subjective experience.
Mind–brain relation, qualia, intentionality.
Whether anything of mind continues.
Evidence around dying, near-death experience, and what (if anything) continues.