Key words

• What is dualism?

  The belief that our body and soul is separate
• what is monism?

  The belief that our soul and body are one
• What is Ockham's Razor?


  The simplest explanation for something is true/ the correct explanation
• what is property dualism?


  there is only one kind of substance/ matter but that matter can have two distinct kind of properties: physical and mental
• what is a substance dualist?


  Belief that the body and soul are separate substances
• The soul

  • often, but not always, understood to be the non-physical essence of a person
• Consciousness

  • awareness or perception
• substance 


  • a subject which has different properties attributed to it
• Scepticism

  • a questioning approach which does not take assumptions for granted
• Materialism

  • the belief that only physical matter exists, and that the mind can be explained in physical terms as a chemical activity in the brain
• Reductive materialism

  • otherwise known as identity theory- the view that mental events are identical with physical occurrences in the brain
• category error

  • a problem of language that arises when things are talked about as if they belong to one category when they in fact belong to the other