Only two objections to God's existence? (Aquinas)

[TS_Aquinas]

“Substance dualism is the view that the universe contains two fundamental types of entity: mental and physical.” 1]

“substance dualism - The view that the mental and the physical comprise two different classes of objects: minds and bodies.” 2]

“Substance dualists typically argue that the mind and the body are composed of different substances and that the mind is a thinking thing that lacks the usual attributes of physical objects: size, shape, location, solidity, motion, adherence to the laws of physics, and so on.” 3]

“Substance dualism holds that there are two fundamentally different types of such entities – material substances, or bodies, and mental substances, or minds.” 4]

You said you looked up substance dualism, but all the above are from a 10 second google search. They all agree with me. Where did you look?

Most of us interchange substance dualism with Cartesian dualism, physical substance and spiritual substance. Thomas Nagel is not a substance dualism but his Property Dualism advocates a duality of mental and physical. But the mental, in this case, is not a substance. It is correct that there is two substances (physical and spiritual), at least in theism as you said, but when it comes to human beings, we are physical with spiritual ends (not elevated to a spiritual substance) and our rational/intellectual ability emerges from our form, not necessarily our brain. If I were to compare it to other dualisms; think of Thomas Nagel’s dualism except with an Aristotelian foundation of form/matter (not explaining properties as accidents) and rational thought emerging from the mental, not the physical, and effecting the physical. It avoids epiphenomenalism (which threatens Nagel’s dualism) and does not propose the human being as an accidental but an ordered species to a final cause. Formal and final causes are the keys, there will always be problems in philosophy of mind and philosophy period until modernists reestablish Aristotelian Four Causes as the main pillar.

 

[empther]

From Perplexity:

“Substance dualism is the view that the universe contains two fundamental types of entity: mental and physical.” 1]

“substance dualism - The view that the mental and the physical comprise two different classes of objects: minds and bodies.” 2]

“Substance dualists typically argue that the mind and the body are composed of different substances and that the mind is a thinking thing that lacks the usual attributes of physical objects: size, shape, location, solidity, motion, adherence to the laws of physics, and so on.” 3]

“Substance dualism holds that there are two fundamentally different types of such entities – material substances, or bodies, and mental substances, or minds.” 4]

You said you looked up substance dualism, but all the above are from a 10 second google search. They all agree with me. Where did you look?

Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind
And here:
http://www.philosophyofmind.info/substancedualism.html
Quote:

Substance dualism is the view that the universe contains two fundamental types of entity: mental and physical. Those who view themselves as immaterial minds housed in physical bodies are thus substance dualists. This view is often called “Cartesian dualism” after Descartes, the philosopher best known for advocating it. It seen by some as old-fashioned and naive, and is often associated with religious world-views. Typically, it involves the following components:

Interesting that my second link is the same as your first link in your quote list,
but you only quoted the first sentence, about two fundamental types of entity in the universe,
and stopped before getting to the second sentence about immaterial mind,
and the third sentence about Descartes.

Trying to get away from the concept of soul?
Deception upon deception!

 

[Neithan]

(2) and (9) merely assume that materialism is false.

I guess you’re right. The assumption is that panpsychist materialism is false. It might be true; fair enough.

I’m not sure that article is the best way of articulating the argument. You may be well read in philosophy and I presume are familiar with different ways of formulating it.

Would you at least agree that it challenges the coherency of reductive physicalism?

 

[Perplexity]

From Perplexity:

Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind
And here:
http://www.philosophyofmind.info/substancedualism.html
Quote:

Interesting that my second link is the same as your first link in your quote list,
but you only quoted the first sentence, about two fundamental types of entity in the universe,
and stopped before getting to the second sentence about immaterial mind,
and the third sentence about Descartes.

Trying to get away from the concept of soul?
Deception upon deception!

Empther, the first sentence is the definition of substance dualism. The second second sentence identifies a species of substance dualism, the third a member of that species. Why would I cite the second or third sentences if all I wanted was a definition of substance dualism?

 

[Perplexity]

I guess you’re right. The assumption is that panpsychist materialism is false. It might be true; fair enough.

I’m not sure that article is the best way of articulating the argument. You may be well read in philosophy and I presume are familiar with different ways of formulating it.

Would you at least agree that it challenges the coherency of reductive physicalism?

Sure, it’s definitely a challenge the physicalist should account for.

A lot of these objections to physicalism get tricky though (e.g., how does the materialist account for quale or intentionality?). It’s not clear that we should expect to know much about the mind at this point in our existence, given materialism. So, materialism’s current inability to account for certain mental facts wouldn’t be surprising if it was true, and thus doesn’t disconfirm it.

 

[In_Spiration]

You said you looked up substance dualism, but all the above are from a 10 second google search. They all agree with me. Where did you look?

OK, I’ve got no problem whatsoever with the definitions, but that bandwidth speed is a little troubling, if I may speak bluntly. Having submitted “substance dualism” only a few moments ago, Google clocked me at a far more reasonable and less humiliating time of 0.13 seconds (which, according to all practical estimates, will end up seeming faster than yours to a user by roughly 10 seconds). Some human beings in history have actually traveled across a 100-meter stretch of asphalt, using just their legs, in a shorter time than it took for you to obtain the results of a standard internet search with the advantage of a modern computer.

All right, but seriously folks. . .

Here are my quick two cents on this stuff. Substance is the most fundamental level of being by itself, and all being ultimately is or is grounded in a substance somehow. Therefore, the world contains only one fundamental type of entity, not two, with the non-fundamental rest of it being relative to unity in some substance. The human substance has both material and immaterial aspects. It is material to the extent of its animality (i.e., as a sensitive body with instinctive appetites for reproduction and self-preservation), yet it is immaterial insofar as it contains rationality (i.e., as an illuminative mind with innate desires for universal reflection and self-understanding). In an attempt to avoid unnecessary confusion, I like to limit my reference strictly to “materialism” whenever considering that often popularly-scientistic theory which confines the alleged reality of this world unto matter alone. Logic is parallel to physics, except with laws for intentional motion (the internal reality of minds) instead of laws for extensional motion (the external reality of bodies). If “physicalism” were true, then I would think logic as commonly conceived is rendered illusory, since it should then have to be determined by the laws of physics re: bodies.