Blackwell Reference Online

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Metaphysics, philosophy of mind Any metaphysical theory which, in contrast to monism, holds that reality is composed of two kinds of fundamental entities, neither of which can be reduced to the other. Descartes divided the world into extended substance (matter) and thinking substance (mind), and these two have mutually incompatible properties. Accordingly, the soul is entirely distinct from the body. This standard mental–physical dualism is called Cartesian dualism. Aside from the above “substance dualism,” there is also “property dualism,” called dual-aspect theory, which suggests that the mental and the physical are two mutually irreducible types of properties of one and the same thing. Russell holds a kind of “causal dualism,” according to which the dualism is not between two entities or properties, but rather between two fundamental kinds of law: physical causal laws and psychological causal laws.Traditional dualism, implying that the mind or soul is independent of body, has difficulty in accounting for interaction between body and mind and has become the focus of many disputes in contemporary philosophy of mind. Ryle accuses dualism of making the mind a ghost in the machine. Various theories about the relationship between mind and body have been proposed to avoid the problems of dualism.In its wider sense, dualism refers to philosophical systems that are established on some ... log in or subscribe to read full text