The argument from doubt. Materialism: Human persons are wholly material—every part of a person,...

the argument from doubt

Materialism: Human persons are wholly material—every part of a person, including the mind, is a material body.Dualism: Human persons are not wholly material—they have both material bodies and immaterial minds.Interactionism: Minds and brains enter into two-way causal interactions.Cartesian Dualism=Dualism+Interactionism

I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not… I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body.

I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not… I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body.

I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not… I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body.

I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not… I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body.

the argument from doubt

1) All material bodies are such that I can doubt their existence.

2) I am not such that I can doubt my existence.

3) I am not a material body.

the parody argument

1) Clark Kent is such that Lois Lane can doubt he’s Superman.

2) Superman is not such that Lois Lane can doubt he’s Superman.

3) Superman is not Clark Kent.