Property Dualism
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Property dualism describes a category of positions in the
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...
which hold that, although the world is composed of just one kind of substancethe physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties. In other words, it is the view that at least some non-physical, mental properties (such as thoughts, imagination and memories) exist in, or naturally supervene upon, certain physical substances (namely
brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...
s). Substance dualism, on the other hand, is the view that there exist in the universe two fundamentally different kinds of substance: physical (
matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic pa ...
) and non-physical (
mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
or
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
), and subsequently also two kinds of properties which inhere in those respective substances. Both substance and property dualism are opposed to reductive physicalism. Notable proponents of property dualism include
David Chalmers David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist, specializing in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, as well ...
, Christof Koch, and Richard Fumerton. It became prominent in the final decades of the twentieth century and is now the leading alternative to
physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the view that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenience, supervenes on the physical. It is opposed to idealism, according to which the world arises ...
.


Definition

Property dualism posits the existence of one material substance with essentially two different kinds of property: physical properties and mental properties. It argues that there are different kinds of properties that pertain to the only type of substance, the material substance: there are physical properties such as having colour or shape and there are mental properties like having certain beliefs or perceptions.


Epiphenomenalism

Epiphenomenalism is a position in the philosophy of mind on the
mind–body problem The mind–body problem is a List_of_philosophical_problems#Mind–body_problem, philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind and Human body, body. It addresses the nature of consciousness ...
. It holds that one or more
mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain/pleasure experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact ...
s and their properties are by-products (or epiphenomena) of the states of a closed physical system, and are not causally reducible to physical states (do not have any influence on physical states). According to this view, mental properties are as such real constituents of the world, but they are causally impotent; while physical causes give rise to mental properties like sensations, volition,
idea In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...
s, etc., such mental phenomena themselves cause nothing further - they are causal dead ends. The position is credited to English biologist Thomas Huxley (Huxley 1874), who analogised mental properties to the whistle on a steam locomotive. The position found a level of favor amongst some scientific
behaviorists Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...
over the next few decades, which then dove in response to the
cognitive revolution The cognitive revolution was an intellectual movement that began in the 1950s as an interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, from which emerged a new field known as cognitive science. The preexisting relevant fields were psychology, ...
in the 1960s.


Epiphenomenal qualia

In the papers "Epiphenomenal Qualia" and "What Mary Didn't Know", Frank Jackson made the so-called knowledge argument against physicalism. The
thought experiment A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is ...
was originally proposed by Jackson as follows: Jackson continued:


Other proponents


Saul Kripke

Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emer ...
has a well-known argument for some kind of property dualism. Using the concept of rigid designators, he states that if dualism is logically possible, then it is the case.


Criticism

In a short paper titled "Why I Am Not a Property Dualist",
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959 and was Willis S. and Mario ...
explains both why his own biological naturalism thesis is distinct from property dualism, as well as why he rejects the latter. He criticises property dualism for wanting to say that (1) the mental and physical are primary ontological categories, (2) the mental is irreducible to, or "over and above", the physical, and (3) the mental and physical are not two separate substances, but are rather two properties of the same physical substance; he sees all three statements taken together as contradictory, and also as forcing the property dualist to face a dilemma between epiphenomenalism and causal overdetermination. According to Searle, the first two statements necessarily commit one to a Cartesian substance ontology, and so the property dualist adds the third statement in order to avoid the problems inherent in substance dualism, but this ends up introducing the aforementioned dilemma between epiphenomenalism and causal overdetermination. Property dualism is thus essentially substance dualism dressed up in the language of properties. Richard Rorty, in Chapter 1 of '' Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature'', similarly criticises property dualism (what he calls "neo-dualism") for essentially being substance dualism under a different name. He claims that a dualism of properties (physical and phenomenal) can simply reflect two different ways of talking about the same thing, namely the states or properties of a person, and even though people are typically incorrigible when talking about themselves using the phenomenal vocabulary, he believes that this could simply reflect an epistemic distinction rather than an ontological one. According to Rorty, the only way that the property dualist can maintain an ''ontological'' gap between the two properties is by hypostatising phenomenal properties (qualia) into non-physical particulars which possess the property of being pure appearances. But then the property dualist starts to look like a substance dualist, since now there are two distinct property-bearing particulars (the person and their qualia) rather than one particular with two properties (the person).Rorty, R. (1979). ''Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature''. Princeton University Press. pp. 28–32


See also

* " What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" * Chinese room *
Explanatory gap In the philosophy of mind, the explanatory gap is the difficulty that physicalist philosophies have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel subjectively when they are experienced. It is a term introduced by philoso ...
*
Functionalism (philosophy of mind) In the philosophy of mind, functionalism is the thesis that each and every mental state (for example, the state of having a belief, of having a desire, or of being in pain) is constituted solely by its functional role, which means its causal relat ...
*
Physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the view that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenience, supervenes on the physical. It is opposed to idealism, according to which the world arises ...
*
Qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia (; singular: quale ) are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () meaning "of what ...


Notes


References

* * Davidson, D. (1970) "Mental Events", in Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980 * Huxley, Thomas. (1874) "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History", ''The Fortnightly Review'', n.s. 16, pp. 555–580. Reprinted in ''Method and Results: Essays by Thomas H. Huxley'' (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898) * Jackson, F. (1982) "Epiphenomenal Qualia", ''The Philosophical Quarterly'' 32: 127-136. * Kim, Jaegwon. (1993) "Supervenience and Mind", Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * MacLaughlin, B. (1992) "The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism", in Beckerman, et al. (eds), Emergence or Reduction?, Berlin: De Gruyter. * Mill, John Stuart (1843). "System of Logic". London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. th ed., 1872


External links


M. D. Robertson: Dualism vs. Materialism: A Response to Paul Churchland

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Dualism

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epiphenomenalism

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Physicalism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Property Dualism Dualism (philosophy of mind) Metaphysics of mind Theory of mind