The Substance of Consciousness : A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism

A singularly powerful and rigorous argument in favor of modern substance dualism In The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism , two distinguished philosophers deliver a unique and powerful defense of contemporary substance dualism, which makes the claim that the human person is an embodied fundamental, immaterial, and unifying substance. Multidisciplinary in scope, the book explores areas of philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, and the sociology of mind-body beliefs. The authors present the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and rigorous non-edited work on substance dualism in the field, as well as a detailed history of how property and substance dualism have been presented and evaluated over the last 150 years. Alongside developing new and updated positive arguments for substance dualism, they also discuss key metaphysical notions and distinctions that inform the examination of substance dualism and its alternatives. Readers will also find: A thorough examination of the recent shift away from standard physicalism and the renaissance of substance dualism Comprehensive explorations of the likely future of substance dualism in the twenty-first century, including an exhaustive list of proposed research projects for substance dualists Practical discussion of new and rigorous critiques of significant physicality alternatives, including emergentism and panpsychism. Extensive treatments of philosophy of mind debates about the roles played by staunch/faint-hearted naturalism and theism in establishing or presuming methodology, epistemic priorities, and prior metaphysical commitments Perfect for professional philosophers, The Substance of Consciousness will also earn a place in the libraries of consciousness researchers, philosophical theologians, and religious studies scholars. The Substance of Consciousness Brief Table of Contents Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments PART I Ontologically Serious Philosophy of Mind CHAPTER 1 Substance Dualism in the 21st Century 1.1 The Return of Substance Dualism 1.1.1 The Great Revolt Against Dualism 1.1.2 The Resurgence of Substance Dualism 1.2 The Case Against Substance Dualism Weakens 1.2.1 Admissions to the Weakness of Standard Objections to Substance Dualism 1.2.2 Admitting the Faith of Anti-Dualism 1.2.3 Proposals of Naturalistic Substance Dualism 1.3 The Revival of Substance Dualist Intuitions 1.3.1 The Return to the Self and Subject of Consciousness 1.3.2 The Meta-Problem of Consciousness and Cognitive Science 1.3.3 The Revival of Aristotelianism 1.3.4 Broad Worldview Considerations 1.4 The Current Turning Away From Standard Physicalism 1.4.1 The Fundamentality of Consciousness 1.4.2 The Return of Panpsychism 1.4.3 Consciousness-First Philosophy of Mind 1.4.4 Phenomenal Transparency and the Opacity of the Physical 1.5 Mere Substance Dualism 1.5.1 Delineating the View 1.5.2 The Undeniable Recalcitrance of Substance Dualism CHAPTER 2 How Staunch Naturalism Shapes the Dialectic in Philosophy of Mind 2.1 Worldviews, Scientific Naturalism, and the Standard Picture 2.1.1 Philosophy of Mind and Worldview Implications 2.1.2 Two Versions of a Naturalistic Worldview 2.1.3 Naturalism and the Standard Picture 2.2 Important Epistemic Background Issues 2.2.1 Basicality 2.2.2 Naturalness 2.2.3 Explanatory Simplicity: Ockham’s Razor and Ontological Parsimony 2.3 Contemporary Scientific Naturalists Should Be Staunch Naturalists and Strong Physicalists 2.3.1 The Naturalist Epistemic Attitude 2.3.1.1 Epistemology and the Origin and Nature of Human Noetic Faculties 2.3.1.2 Scientism 2.3.1.3 Third-Person Ways of Knowing 2.3.1.4 Combinatorial Modes of Explanation 2.3.2 The Grand Story 2.3.2.1 Précis of the Grand Story 2.3.2.2 Four Core Elements to the Grand Story 2.3.3 The Standard Naturalist Ontology 2.3.3.1 The Location Problem 2.3.3.2 Microphysical Priority and the Mereological Hierarchy 2.4 Naturalistic Emergence 2.4.1 Three Important Distinctions 2.4.1.1 Weak Vs. Strong Property Supervenience 2.4.1.2 Emergent Vs. Structural Supervenience 2.4.1.3 Making Precise the Notion of an Emergent Property 2.4.2 Additional Metaphysical Aspects of Emergent Properties 2.4.2.1 Twin Hallmarks of Emergence 2.4.2.2 Seven Characteristics of Emergent Properties 2.4.3 Confusion About the Basic Problem of Emergent Properties and Faint-Hearted Naturalism 2.4.4 Classification of Emergent Properties and a New Difficulty for Faint-Hearted Naturalism 2.4.5 Eight Additional Criticisms 2.4.5.1 “Emergence” Is Just a Label 2.4.5.2 Emergence and Empirically Equivalent Theories 2.4.5.3 Emergence Ex Nihilo 2.4.5.4 Emergence as Brute Facts 2.4.5.5 Sorites Problems 2.4.5.6 The Combination Problem 2.4.5.7 Consciousness and a Bayesian Argument for Theism 2.4.5.8 Novel Properties and New Substances 2.5 Going Forward CHAPTER 3 A Brief Ontological Detour: Subjects, Parts, Wholes, and Unity 3.1 Husserlian Parts, Wholes, and Unity 3.1.1 Parthood and Simplicity: Separable and Inseparable Parts 3.1.2 Holistic Unity: Genuine Wholes, Relations, and Aggregates 3.2 Subjects of Consciousness: A Few Metaphysical Theses 3.2.1 What Is Consciousness? 3.2.2 Realism About Substantial Subjects and the Self 3.2.3 Subject Necessity 3.2.4 Subjects, Not Mental States, Are Conscious 3.2.5 Subject Simplicity and Subject Complexity PART II Arguments from Introspection, Self-Awareness, and Intentionality CHAPTER 4 The Real Nature of Introspection Arguments for Substance Dualism 4.1 Introspection Arguments for Substance Dualism 4.2 The Intensional Fallacy Objection 4.2.1 Replies 4.2.1.1 Equivocating Propositional Knowledge and Knowledge by Acquaintance 4.2.1.2 Absurd Introspection Skepticism 4.2.1.3 Missing the Target: Why AFI Is Metaphysical 4.3 The Objection from Neurological de Dicto but Not de Re Beliefs 4.3.1 Replies 4.3.1.1 The Neuroscientific Loss of Introspective Skepticism 4.3.1.2 The Illicit Presumption of Physicalism 4.3.1.3 Dubious Analogies from the History of Science 4.3.1.4 Grahek’s Challenge to the Phenomenal Essence of Pain 4.4 Searle’s Anti-Introspection Argument 4.5 Conclusion CHAPTER 5 From Self-Awareness and Intentionality to the Self as Soul 5.1 David Barnett’s Simplicity Argument 5.1.1 Barnett’s Argument Stated 5.1.2 Objections to Barnett’s Argument 5.1.2.1 Elimination 5.1.2.2 Maximality 5.1.2.3 Substance 5.1.2.4 Integrity 5.1.3 Summary 5.2 The Hard Meta-Problem of Consciousness 5.2.1 Intuitions and Rational Seemings 5.2.2 The Easy and Hard Meta-Problems of Consciousness 5.2.3 The Data: Dualist Seemings 5.2.3.1 Explanatory Gap Seemings 5.2.3.2 Unity and Simplicity Seemings 5.2.3.3 The Cognitive Science of Commonsense Substance Dualism 5.2.3.4 Eighteen Distinct Dualist Seemings 5.2.3.5 Artificial Intelligence Test Seemings 5.2.3.6 Three Explanatory Conditions of Dualist Seemings 5.3 A Direct Self-Awareness Argument for Substance Dualism 5.3.1 DSA: The Direct Self-Awareness Account of Dualist Seemings 5.3.2 Knowledge by Acquaintance 5.3.3 Monadic Intentionality 5.3.4 Givenness and Directedness 5.3.5 Direct Self-Awareness as a Self-Presenting Property 5.3.6 Self-Awareness Necessity 5.3.7 The Causal-Acquaintance Principle 5.3.8 Monadic Intentionality, Direct Self-Awareness, and Dualist Seemings 5.3.9 Satisfying the Explanatory Conditions of Dualist Seemings 5.3.10 Explanatory Unity 5.4 A Direct Reflective Self-Awareness Argument for Substance Dualism 5.4.1 Husserlian Fulfillment Structures and Self-Knowledge 5.4.2 Knowledge and Intentionality 5.4.3 Fulfilled SD Seemings 5.5 Objections to Self-Awareness Arguments 5.5.1 Hume’s Phenomenological Report 5.5.2 Commonsense Materialism 5.5.3 Linguistic and Theoretical Dependence 5.5.4 Absent Dualist Seemings 5.5.5 Religious Etiology 5.5.6 Neuroscientific Defeaters 5.5.7 Self-Awareness Failure 5.5.8 The Dual-Process Defeater 5.5.8.1 Dualist Seemings and Moorean Facts 5.5.8.2 A Dualist Rival to DPA 5.5.8.3 A Generality Problem for DPA 5.5.8.4 A Superior Physicalist Account of Self-Awareness 5.6 A Crucial Implication of the Direct Self-Awareness Argument PART III On the Fundamental Unity of Conscious Beings CHAPTER 6 From Phenomenal Unity to the Synchronic Unity of the Immaterial Self 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Datum: Phenomenally Unified Consciousness 6.2.1 Phenomenal Unity 6.2.2 Phenomenal Holism 6.2.3 Subject Phenomenal Unity 6.3 Phenomenally Unified Consciousness Contra Physicalism 6.3.1 The Anti-Distribution Argument 6.3.2 A Temporal Distribution Problem 6.3.3 The Process Argument 6.3.4 A Non-Phenomenal Processing Problem 6.3.5 A Micro-Subject Problem 6.3.6 The Function Argument 6.3.6.1 The Function Argument Against Animalism 6.3.7 An Emergentist Objection 6.3.8 Not All Simple Souls Will Do: Contra Emergent Substance Dualism 6.4 Phenomenally Unified Consciousness Contra Russellian Panpsychism 6.4.1 The Combination Problem(s) 6.4.2 The Privacy Argument Against Panpsychist Phenomenal Unity 6.4.2.1 Mental-Sharing and Subjectivity 6.4.2.2 Self-Presentation 6.4.2.3 Mine-ness Necessity 6.4.2.4 A Neo-Aristotelian Ontology of Phenomenal States 6.4.3 Objections to the Privacy Argument 6.4.3.1 Deny Mental-Sharing 6.4.3.2 Reject Privacy 6.5 General Objections to the Unity of Consciousness Argument 6.5.1 Rejecting Phenomenal Unity 6.5.2 Tim Bayne’s Explanatory Failure Objection CHAPTER 7 Mereological Essentialism and the Diachronic Endurance of the Soul 7.1 Stating and Clarifying the Argument 7.1.1 The Mereological Argument 7.1.2 Simplicity 7.1.3 Clarification of the Argument 7.2 The Standard Mereological Hierarchy or Layered View of the Natural World 7.2.1 A General Depiction of the Mereological Hierarchy 7.2.2 The Category of Individual 7.2.3 The Category of Property/Relation 7.2.4 The Structure of the Mereological Hierarchy 7.2.5 Causation 7.2.6 Concepts and Laws 7.3 A Defense of Premise (4): Human Persons Are Enduring Simple Spiritual Substances 7.3.1 Simple and Complex Views of Diachronic Personal Identity 7.3.2 Our Basic Awareness of Ourselves 7.3.3 Plantinga’s Replacement Argument 7.3.4 Normative, Teleological Rationality, Rational Deliberation, and the Simple Enduring Spiritual Self 7.3.4.1 Reasoning Is Intrinsically Teleological 7.3.4.2 Fulfillment Structures and Teleologically Arranged Action Plans 7.4 Defense of Premise (1): MAs Are Mereological Inconstant Objects 7.4.1 An Ontological Assay of MAs 7.4.2 Defeaters for the Complex View of PI 7.4.2.1 The Circularity Problem 7.4.2.2 Gradualism, Transitivity, and Sorites 7.4.2.3 The Fission Problem 7.4.2.4 Immanent Causation to the Rescue? 7.4.3 Two Physicalist Alternatives to Human Persons as MAs 7.4.3.1 We Are Atomic Simples 7.4.3.1.1 Chisholm on Extended Physical Atoms or Simple Souls 7.4.3.1.2 Mental Subjects Are Simple Souls: Assessing the Case 7.4.3.1.3 The Ubiquitous Rejection of the EPA Position 7.4.3.2 We Are Homeodynamic Systems 7.4.3.2.1 Objections to the Systems Approach 7.4.3.2.1.1 What We Seem to Know About Oursel 7.4.3.2.1.2 Avoid Spooky Entities at All Costs 7.4.3.2.1.3 Complex Systems as Synchronically Unified Wholes 7.4.3.2.1.4 Problems with Harmonizing Physicalism and Downward Causation (DC) 7.4.3.2.1.5 Complex Systems as Enduring Continuants 7.4.3.2.1.6 Versions of Staunch Hylomorphism Are Superior to Systems Theories of Organisms, Specifically, Human Persons PART IV Updated and Novel Arguments from Modality and Libertarian Freedom CHAPTER 8 Upgrading Modal Arguments for Substance Dualism 8.1 A Modal Argument for SD 8.1.1 Statement of the Argument 8.1.2 Clarification of the Argument 8.2 Defense of the Argument 8.2.1 Contingent Physicalism and Premise (2) 8.2.1.1 Merricks on Contingent Physicalism and the Modal Argument 8.2.1.1.1 Objections to Merricks’s Argument 8.2.1.2 Contra Bailey’s Contingent Physicalism 8.2.1.2.1 Four Features of Bailey’s Position 8.2.1.2.2 Four Problems with Bailey’s Position 8.2.1.2.3 An Addition Response to Bailey’s Via Negativa 8.2.2 Clarification and Defense of Premise (3) 8.2.2.1 Conceivability and Possibility 8.2.2.2 Modal Epistemology, Rational Intuitions as Seemings and Adequate Intuitive Presentation 8.2.2.2.1 Timothy O’Connor 8.2.2.2.2 George Bealer 8.2.2.2.3 Edmund Husserl 8.3 Five Objections Against Modal Arguments for SD 8.3.1 The Modal Argument Is Circular 8.3.2 The Modal Argument Establishes Merely a Duality of Concepts 8.3.3 Physicalist and Dualism Intuitions Cancel Out Each Other 8.3.4 Problems with Dualist Thought Experiments 8.3.5 Kripke and the Confusion Between Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility CHAPTER 9 Staunch Libertarian Agency and the Simple, Enduring Soul 9.1 Contemporary Recognition of the Problem SLA Raises for Naturalism and Physicalism 9.2 The Argument and Its Basic Epistemic Justification 9.2.1 The SLA Argument 9.2.2 Our Fundamental Justification for Libertarian Freedom 9.3 SLA and Its Metaphysical Worldview Implications 9.3.1 A Formal Characterization of SLA 9.3.2 Six Features That Constitute SLA 9.3.2.1 Free Agents Are Substances 9.3.2.2 Free Agents Have Active Power 9.3.2.3 Free Agents Are First Movers 9.3.2.4 Free Agents Have Categorical Ability 9.3.2.5 Free Agents Act for the Sake of Teleological Ends 9.3.2.6 Free Agents Exhibit Top/Down Causation 9.4 Alternatives to SLA 9.4.1 Daniel Dennett and Free Will Irrealism 9.4.2 John Searle and Creative Compatibilism 9.4.2.1 Free Will Within Naturalist Constraints 9.4.2.2 A Solution to the Naturalist Problem of Free Will 9.4.2.3 A Critique of Searle’s Solution 9.4.3 Robert Kane and Faint-Hearted Libertarian Freedom 9.4.3.1 Kane and Naturalistic Constraints 9.4.3.2 Three Objections to Kane’s Position 9.4.3.2.1 Kane’s Denial of a Substantial Agent 9.4.3.2.2 Two Problems with Kane’s Account of Causality 9.4.3.2.3 Kane’s Rejection of Reasons as Teleological Ends 9.4.4 Kevin Timpe and Jonathan Jacobs: Minimalist Naturalism and Libertarianism 9.5 Causal Closure of the Physical and “Top-Down” Causation 9.5.1 Kim’s Supervenience Argument 9.5.2 Kim’s Crucial Background Assumption 9.5.3 The Major Difficulty: Emergence 9.5.3.1 No Causal Overdetermination 9.5.3.1.1 Ted Sider’s Counterargument and Our Response 9.5.3.1.2 Macro-Objects Are Aggregates 9.5.3.1.3 Adapting a Defeater from O’Connor and Churchill 9.6 Conclusion PART V New and Neglected Responses to Common Defeaters Against Substance Dualism CHAPTER 10 Important Frequently Raised Defeaters Against Substance Dualism 10.1 The Three Problems of Causal Interaction 10.1.1 Disambiguating “How Can Mental Entities Causally Interact with Physical Entities?” 10.1.2 Causal Interaction Violates the Conservation of Energy Principle 10.1.3 Causal Interaction Falls Prey to the Problem of Causal Pairing 10.2 Nine Neuroscientific Objections to SD 10.2.1 SD as a Soul-of-the-Gaps Argument 10.2.2 Neuroscience and the Explanatory Impotence of SD 10.2.3 Empirically Equivalent Theories and the Findings of Neuroscience 10.2.4 Neuroscience and the Nature of the Central Issues in Philosophy of Mind 10.2.5 Neuroscientific Methodology Relies on First-Person Reports 10.2.6 Scientific Explanation, Necessitation, and the Failure of the Neuroscientific Correlations 10.2.7 Neuroscientific Correlations and an Ad Hoc, Bloated Ontology 10.2.8 The Neuroscientific Parsimony Objection 10.2.9 Defeating and Turning the Tables on an SD Parsimony Argument 10.3 Postulating a Substantial Soul Is Explanatorily Impotent in Explaining the Occurrence of Conscious States 10.3.1 SD and Explanatory Impotence 10.3.2 SD and the Problematic Nature of Soul Stuff 10.3.3 SD Responses to These Objections 10.3.4 Responding to a Misguided Physicalist Defeater 10.3.5 A Response to Bailey’s Magical Mystery Tour PART VI Charting a Future for Substance Dualism CHAPTER 11 New Research Programs for 21st Century Substance Dualism 11.1 Conceptual Research Projects 11.1.1 Charting the Logical Space of Mere Substance Dualism 11.1.1.1 The Historical Argument 11.1.1.2 The Substance Argument 11.1.1.3 Varieties of Contemporary Substance Dualism 11.2 Methodological Research Projects 11.2.1 Empirically Informed and Testable SD 11.2.2 Ontologically Serious Philosophy of Mind 11.2.2.1 Properties, Powers, and Substances 11.2.2.2 Parts, Wholes, and Unity 11.2.2.3 The Return of Teleology 11.2.3 Preserving the Person/Subject 11.2.4 Preserving the First-Person 11.2.5 Consciousness-First and Analytic Phenomenology 11.3 Developmental SD Research Projects 11.3.1 Charting the Logical Space of SD Embodiment 11.3.1.1 Two-Dozen or so SD Embodiment Distinctions 11.3.1.2 SD Embodiment and the Unity of the Person 11.3.1.3 The Bodily Soul View 11.3.1.4 Staunch Hylomorphic SD 11.3.2 The Great Importance of Embodiment for SD 11.3.3 SD and Psychological Development 11.3.4 SD and the Nature of the Physical 11.4 Applied SD Research Projects 11.4.1 SD and New Waves in the Philosophy of Religion 11.4.2 SD and Epistemology 11.4.2.1 Internalism and Externalism 11.4.2.2 Social Epistemology 11.4.3 SD and Content Externalism 11.4.4 SD and Social Psychology 11.4.5 SD Healthcare and Mental Health 11.4.6 SD Approaches to Developing Technology 11.4.6.1 SD and Transhumanism 11.4.6.2 SD and Artificial Intelligence 11.4.6.3 SD and Virtual Reality 11.5 Conclusion APPENDIX: The Soul, Mental Action, and the Conservation Laws Bibliography Index EULA