Non-Reductive Materialism vs Substance Dualism

This essay will explain the philosophical theory known as nonreductive materialism. It will then identify the problems that this theory encounters with respect to causation and then, given its admission of an irreducibly mental aspect of the brain or body, substance dualism seems to threaten. Ideas advanced by Searle, Kim, Nagel, Swineburn, Willard and others will be incorporated into this analysis, which will argue that the prospects for substance dualism (in the Cartesian sense) are highly likely -- at least to the extent that non-reductive materialism fails to identify the nexus between substances in a meaningful way.

John Searle (277) states that "mental phenomena are caused by neurophysiological processes in the brain and are themselves features of the brain." This represents the fundamental basis of a nonreductive materialism in which a natural phenomena is identified by Searle (279) as linking the mental and the physical realm in nature and positing that the mental and the physical are the same in kind, therefore rejecting Cartesian dualism and positing a unity between the physical and the mental.

This particular view is affirmed in part by J.J. Smart (20-21) who maintains that a lack of awareness in consciousness of our experiences as physical or neurological processes leads us to think that we are aware of them as nonphysical. In other words, knowledge of the

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e subjective contents of experience." In other words, by failing to properly consider causation, Non-Reductive Materialism becomes little more than a form of property dualism. The Threat of Substance Dualism Substance dualism refers, in it most basic form, to the differences between the substances that constitute mind and matter, brain and body, thought and sensation. Swinburne (311) distinguishes between properties and events with respect to whether or not they are physical or mental. Rejecting hard materialism as well as soft materialism, Swinburne (315) rejects hard dualism in which it is assumed that the soul has a necessary morality and that if the soul is separated from the body it will continue to exist. Instead, Swinburne (315) advocates a wider position of soft dualism in which during normal earthly life, the soul is dependent for its functioning (understood as having a mental life) on the functioning of the body. When the body ceases to function the soul does, too. This approach to dualism stands against nonreductive materialism and appears to mitigate against Kim's (257) rejection of any retrogression to Cartesian interactionist dualism. Substance dualism therefore seems to threaten quite directly, given that
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Approximate Word count = 1596
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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