Property Dualism

• Physical substance can have two kinds or properties

  • Physical properties - material
  • Mental properties - immaterial
• Property: A quality of a substance which is contingent upon it

  Substance: something that can exist on its own
• Physical and non-physical substances

  • types of thing
  • chair (physical) soul (non—physical)
• Property Dualism

  • matter can have two properties - mental and physical
  • physical = physical, material
  • mental = non-physical, immaterial
  • consciousness is real but not substantial (its own substance), cannot exist without a living brain
  • property dualists believe in one type of substance but two types of properties
  • mental states and physical states can supervene on each other
• Advantage over substance dualism

  • explains why having a mind depends upon having a brain
  • mental states are properties and cannot exist on their own
• Arguments for property dualism

  1. Leibniz’s machine
  2. philosophical zombies
  3. Mary’s room
• Arguments for property dualism - general idea

  • You can know all the physical facts about something without knowing anything about the mental facts
  • there is more to the mental than just physical facts
• Leibniz Machine

  • we can know, physically, how a brain thinks, senses and perceives yet this wouldn’t give an explanation of conscious states and how they Come about
  • Leibniz likens this to a machine that thinks, senses and perceives- if you could enter all you would find are parts that push and move but nothing that explains perception
  • Brain and consciousness work the same way
  • Physicalism is an incomplete account of what is in the world - need to posit non-physical entity