Hugh’s Dualism

Abstract

Integral to Hugh of St. Victor’s theological anthropocentrism is a robust dualism that distinguishes the human mind or soul capable of rational and volitional acts as a purely immaterial entity that is ontologically independent from the human body with its material states and processes. Hugh regards the soul-body relation as analogous to the relation between God and the physical universe. In each case an immaterial subject (God, the soul) administers and regulates a corporeal being (the physical universe, the human body) yet is capable of existing apart from it. Hugh supplements his theological anthropocentrism at various points in order to make sense of creation ex nihilo, natural causality, and divine immutability. However, the fundamental question remains of whether there is any plausible argument for his dualism. We also might wonder how Hugh construes the relation between a soul and the body it administers, as well as the relation between a soul’s acts of judging or willing and sensory experiences. The relevance of all these questions is obvious: unless independent support can be provided for Hugh’s dualism, Hugh’s entire theological project rests upon a highly tendentious assumption.