David Lund: The Strong Dualism and the Afterlife

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Student, Department of Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Theology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Relying on the interpretation and defense of David Lund’s viewpoint, this study examines the strong dualism or the dualism of particulars to prove afterlife. The biggest obstacle in this regard is the concept of causality and the specification of the way the two particular and universal substances interact. Therefore, using philosophical and phenomenological argumentations, we demonstrate that the basis of this interaction is the priority of the subjective matter and the essential, causal, unreducable features of the two substances that have causal access to each other through embodiment. “Self” as a non-physical substance has no essential dependence and reliance on the physical substance of the body; therefore, it can survive after it cuts its causal relationship with it at the time of death. This study focuses merely on showing the logicality, meaningfulness, and occurrence of the foregoing dualism. The findings of the study indicate that no matter if we reduce causality to the natural system or deem it as the causal interaction of uneducable forces and potentials of the two substances, there would be no doubt in its logicality and meaningfulness. Therefore, due to the abstractness of “self” and its causal-causative features, the best explanation for our inevitable and direct insight of our volitional acts is to say that what is seen in this insight is real and the dual causality occurs in practice. If our argumentations are correct, they might be used to prove afterlife.

Keywords

References

  1. Anscombe, G.E.M. (1958). "On Brute Facts." Analysis 18 (3): 69-72.
  2. Barnes, Janathan. (1979). The Peresocratics. Boston: Routledgeand Kegan Paul.
  3. Boghossian, Paul A. (1994). "The Transparency of Mental Content." Philosophical Perspectives 8: 33-50.
  4. Heil, John. (2004). Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction. Second. Routledge.
  5. Hoffmann, J, and G Rosenkrantz. (1991). "Are Souls Intelligible?" Edited by J.E. Tomberlin. Phisophical Perspectives 5: Phisophy of Religion: 183-212.
  6. Howard, Robinson. (2017). "Dualism." The StanfordEndyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/dualism/>.
  7. Kelly, E. F. (2010). Irreducible Mind; Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman& Littlefield.
  8. Lund, David H. (1985). Death and Consciousness. Jefferson, NC:McFarland.
  9. ------------------------- (1990). "Disembodied Existence, Personal Identity, and the First Person Perspective." Idealistic Studies 20 (3): 187-202.

10. ------------------------- (2003). Making Sense of It All. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson Education.

11. ------------------------- (2014). "Materialism, Dualism, and the Conscious Self." In Contemporary dualism : A Defense, edited by Andrea Lavazza and Howard Robinson, 56-78. Routledge.

12. ------------------------- (1994). Perception, Mind and Personal Identity: A Critique of Materialism. Lanham,MD: University Press of America.

13. ------------------------- (2009). Persons, Souls and Death. North Carolina: McFarland.

14. ------------------------- (2005). The Conscious Self: The Immaterial Center of subjective states. Amherst,NY: Humanity Books.

15. Sosa, Ernest. (1984). "Mind-Body Interaction and Supervenient Causation." Midwest Studies in Philosophy (John Wiley and Sons) 9 (1): 271-281.

16. Taliaferro, C. (2018). Substance Dualism: A Defense. In J. J. Loose, A. J. Menuge, & J. Moreland (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism (pp. 43-60). NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Philosophy of Religion
Volume 18, Issue 1
April 2021
Pages 71-97

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics