Roczniki Filozoficzne, 2021, Tom 69, Nr 1

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/1745

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    Response to Essays on Are We Bodies or Souls?
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021-03-19) Swinburne, Richard
    This paper consists of my responses to the comments by nine commentators on my book Are we Bodies or Souls? It makes twelve separate points, each one relevant to the comments of one or more of the commentators, as follows: (1) I defend my understanding of “knowing the essence” of an object as knowing a set of logically necessary and sufficient conditions for an object to be that object; (2) I claim that there cannot be thoughts without a thinker; (3) I argue that my distinction of “mental” from “physical” events in terms of whether anyone has privileged access to whether or not they occur, is a clear one; (4) and (5) I defend my account of metaphysical modality and its role in defending my account of personal identity; (6) I defend my view that Descartes’s argument in favor of the view that humans are essentially souls fails, but that my amended version of that argument succeeds; (7) I claim that my theory acknowledges the closeness of the connection in an earthly life between a human soul and its body; (8) I argue that my Cartesian theory of the soul-body relation is preferable to Aquinas’s theory of that; (9) I argue that a material thing cannot have mental properties; (10) I argue that any set of logically necessary conditions for an object to be the object it is, which together form a logically sufficient condition for this, mutually entails any other such set; (11) I deny that a dualist needs to provide an explanation of how the soul has the capacities that it has; and finally (12) I defend my view that souls have thisness, and claim that that is not a difficulty for the view that God determines which persons will exist.
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    Not Just a Terminological Difference: Cartesian Substance Dualism vs Thomistic Hylomorphism
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021-03-19) Skrzypek, Jeremy W.
    In Are We Bodies or Souls? Richard Swinburne presents an updated formulation and defense of his dualist theory of the human person. On this theory, human persons are compound substances, composed of both bodies and souls. The soul is the only essential component of the human person, however, and so each of us could, in principle, continue to exist without our bodies, composed of nothing more than our souls. As Swinburne himself points out, his theory of the human person shares many similarities with the hylomorphic theory of the human person espoused by Thomas Aquinas. Swinburne suggests at one point that the differences between the two theories are “almost entirely terminological,” pertaining chiefly to how each understands the term ‘substance’. In this essay, I aim to show that the differences between Swinburne’s Cartesian substance dualism and Thomistic hylomorphism are much more significant than that. I argue, moreover, that the distinctive claims of Thomistic hylomorphism allow it to successfully avoid some key concerns for Swinburne’s view.
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    The Dualist Project and the Remote-Control Objection
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021-03-10) Olson, Eric T.
    Substance dualism says that all thinking beings are immaterial. This sits awkwardly with the fact that thinking requires an intact brain. Many dualists say that bodily activity is causally necessary for thinking. But if a material thing can cause thinking, why can’t it think? No argument for dualism, however convincing, answers this question, leaving dualists with more to explain than their opponents.
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    Are We Embodied Souls?
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021-03-19) Taliaferro, Charles
    It is argued that Swinburne should stress the functional unity of soul and body under most healthy conditions. Too often, critics of substance dualism charge dualists with promoting a problematic bifurcation between soul and body. Swinburne’s work is defended against objections from Thomas Nagel. It is argued that Swinburne’s appeal to the first-person point of view is sound.
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    Swinburne’s Are We Bodies or Souls?
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021-03-19) Hasker, William
    Richard Swinburne’s Are We Bodies or Souls? presents a sustained case for a view concerning the nature of persons that can be classified as a form of either Cartesian dualism or emergent dualism. This paper comments on two important arguments developed in the book and concludes by considering the problem of the origin of souls.