Examples Of Substance Dualism

In this paper I will explain and argue for substance dualism. Substance Dualism states that “Minds & Bodies are two different sorts of basic Substances.” Substances are things that are capable of independent existence, and that support properties or qualities. Properties are ways that substances can be, and thus can exist only by being present in a substance and cannot exist independently (Van Gulick). One substance can have different properties. “For example subatomic particles such as Protons, neutrons and electrons have mass, and they also have charge. Charge and mass are different basic properties but the thing that has mass is the same thing that has charge, specifically the particle” (Van Gulick). “Nevertheless it seems highly plausible …show more content…
We can look at how the mind is an aspect of the body. Without the mind, the body couldn’t act. Therefore, the mind is substance of the body. To make this clearer we can look at a religious example. Within, religion, there are both mental and physical aspects that take up ones life. When a religious person goes to church for example they learn about the morals and values through text of the Old Testament. These values, lets say helping out others through community service, add to peoples lives. People, who go to church, learn through stories and from community leaders how great community service is. However, if you don’t actually partake in community service what difference would any of this make? You could take the mental aspect that could in theory act independently of the physical aspect of yourself. This is true because even though you know community service is good, you don’t necessarily need to actually do any community service. Yes, obviously its better to do community service but a lot of people don’t. More people go to church then people who partake in community service that clearly proves this. The mental aspect of this is within your mind, and then actually doing community service would be your body doing the act of helping others. One could, however, argue that the mind cannot act independently of your body, or that your body wouldn’t be able to function without your mind. This is a weaker argument …show more content…
Some hold the idea of occasionalism to be true while some hold parallelism to be true (Feinberg). For example, “the woods silver penetration of my flesh does not cause me to feel pain; rather, it is the occasion for god, whose infinite nature somehow encompasses both mind and matter, to cause me to feel pain, and similarly that my desire to raise my arm is simply the occasion for Gods causing my arm to go up” (Feinberg). However, parallelism states that mind and body only appear to interact because of a kind of “pre-established harmony” between their life histories