David Armstrong Dualism

Dualism is a view where the mind and body are two fundamentally different things. It’s the thought that the body is a pure physical state, and the mind is a pure mental/non-physical state. The body has an identified location, is led by the laws of nature, and it is open to the world to see. Whereas the mind has no location, isn’t led by the laws of nature, and is not public. Materialism is the view that individuals are nothing more than physical elements put together. For we all are made up of stardust and carbon matter. Additionally that ones thought is just a physical explanation for the brain. That for every experience we have, there in turn has to be a mind to brain connection. Therefore causing the brain to mind and the mind to be the brain.

David Armstrong rejected the view of Dualism. Instead he argued that everything in the …show more content…
He states how we have yet to give a scientific explanation to the mind (aka conciseness). The idea of it being a fundamentally different thing doesn’t explain anything. In the dualist case, they can’t explain why a non-physical entity can affect a physical one. For if it is non-physical it cant be located, if it cant be located then how can one be sure of its affects? With the help of Ockham’s razor, Quine further elaborates on his rejection of Dualism. Ockham’s maxim of parsimony states, that if there are two ideas that both explain the issue, chose the one that is simpler to understand. To say that the mind is the brain is much simpler than introducing a non-physical entity. As Quine states, “Better to drop the duplication and just recognize the mental activity as a part of the body” (Quine 132). If we introduce a non-physical entity it would led to more speculation that wouldn’t get answered. Whereas, every phenomenon in a physical world can be explained. We are all created from the same elements as there are in the universe. All human experiences can also be explained by physical