Taking consciousness seriously: A defense of Cartesian dualism

Abstract

Most western traditional (theistic) philosophers have argued that the existence of consciousness requires some form of substantial non-material soul or self. Both God and the self are non-material, but the self has a material component that God does not. There have been several varieties of non-material substantial souls among western philosophers past and present. Three prominent conceptions are the Platonic/Cartesian, the Aristotelian/Thomistic, and now “emergent” dualists. All three are thought to be dead by the majority of contemporary philosophers of mind. My purpose in this paper is to defend what is standardly called Cartesian dualism, as it has been modified over time since Descartes. This view of the self is derived from the examination of consciousness as we are aware of it directly, but does have interesting relationships with western theism. It is often claimed that God is needed to explain the existence of souls, and, conversely, that the existence of souls provides important evidence to justify belief in a western theistic God. Descartes was convinced that the present existence of a non-substantial self could not be contradicted, and found other reasons to support his view that this self was not material, persisted in time, was possibly immortal, and had a relation to its body which was merely contingent and with which it interacted frequently. Taking consciousness seriously requires a non-material self. Briefly stated, modern Cartesians have defended the existence of a nonmaterial persisting conscious self, justifying its persistence in order to account for continuity of experience, character and memory, and justifying its non-materiality by the fact that its contents (qualia, feelings, thoughts, etc.) cannot be located in the physical world (inside or outside the self) and that its ways of responding (reasoning, free will, intentionality, etc.) are not ways that material bodies operate. So far I am merely stating the obvious about substance dualism. It is my claim that if we are to take consciousness seriously, take it as we experience it ourselves, a substance view of the self is required. As I have said, there are currently three forms of substance dualism, and I cannot defend and analyze all three. What I have chosen to do is defend the Cartesian view, commenting on some of the reasons why emergent dualist views are not adequate, and ignoring for the present project Aristotelian/Thomistic views, though I think such views share deficiencies with emergent dualism. It is important now to defend substance dualism because there are clear signs that some of the more important defenders of non-substance philosophies of mind have realized that their hopes for doing justice to consciousness and many of the traditional values embedded in our view of the self cannot be worked out