We're now considering in class Merricks' reasons for thinking that the Incarnation gives us good reason to reject the view that a human person is identical to an immaterial soul and accept instead the view that a human person is identical to a physical substance (an organism, perhaps).
Here are some arguments that Merricks offers against other views of the human person. We won't get to discuss these in class (I think).
Against Emergent Dualism
Emergent dualism is a view defended by some folks (including Christians like William Hasker) according to which (very roughly) the immaterial soul emerges from the complex interactions of the physical brain. (Hasker writes: "As a magnet generates its magnetic field, so an organism generates its field of consciousness. Corresponding to the current passing through the wire that generates the electromagnetic field, there are processes in the neurons of the brain and nervous system that generate conscious awareness. This consciousness--the mind or soul, as we call it--is a real thing in its own right, distinct from the generating organism."
Merricks offers a quick Incarnation argument against this kind of view: "Hasker (1999) takes a soul's having a body to be that body's generating that soul. This bodes ill for the Incarnation--surely the body of Jesus does not generate God the Son--so I shall set Hasker's account aside." (See fn. 5 on p. 283.)
What do you make of that argument?
Against Composite Substance Dualism
Composite Substance Dualism, you'll recall from Dean Zimmerman, is the view that a human person is identical to a composite of immaterial soul and physical body. So, on this view, a human person is not identical to an immaterial soul. Nor is a human person identical to a physical body. Rather, a human person is identical to the composite of soul and body. So, you have a soul and you have a body.
Merricks (and Zimmerman, too) offer this argument against Composite Substance Dualism: "This is a minority view among dualistic philosophers, and for good reason. For, if there are souls, they have mental properties. Persons have mental properties, too. So the dualist who denies that a person is identical with a soul must say that there are two objects with mental properties (a person and her soul) where normally we think that there is one." (See fn. 2 on p. 282. To see Zimmerman's presentation of the argument, go to p. 20.)
What do you make of that argument?
Finally...The Big Question:
All things considered, what view of the nature of human persons are you leaning toward, and why?
Be sure to interact with each other! My guess is that you won't always have this kind of opportunity.
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Regarding the argument against Emergent Dualism:
ReplyDeleteIt does seem somewhat awkward and incorrect for Jesus body to "generate God the Son," as Merricks states it. However, it does seem plausible to look at it slightly differently. Consider that Jesus renounced his throne in heaven and humbled himself to become human. If being human means that one's consciousness is generated by one's brain and if Jesus became fully human, then it seems plausible to suppose that Jesus' first person consciousness human consciousness was generated by his human brain. If one accepts an emergent dualism view, I don't see how explaining the incarnation problem is really all that difficult. But, perhaps I'm going wrong somewhere: if so, someone please indicate where.
Regarding Composite Substance Dualism:
Merricks said something to the effect of: a composite substance dualist must say that there are two distinct objects "a person and her soul." Are there really two? And is that really what the composite substance dualist is forced to say? If a person is the soul and body, it seems right to say that the mental properties of the soul are the mental properties of the person. So, are they really two different objects? I don't know. It seems more like a car (person) and the soul (engine) or something like that rather than two completely different things like a car (person) and a motorcycle (soul).
Regarding my current stance:
I still think I'm in the dualism category, but a lot of this stuff has got me thinking.
- Kaleb M.
First of all, the biblical account of Christ’s incarnation seems difficult to understand. Period. I think that both physicalism and substance dualism have a difficult time interpreting this event. It seems which ever view makes the most sense will still have significant trouble simply due to the difficult concept of incarnation itself. I almost feel inclined to raise the same question to incarnation that Van Inwagen did to 1 Samuel 28:7-20 (Saul, Witch of Endor, and Samuel’s ghost): “Is this not a difficult story for all Christian who take the Bible seriously?”
ReplyDeleteAnyway, which view makes the most sense of the incarnation? I think I am still leaning toward substance dualism. I think I agree with Merrick’s response to emergent dualism: I just don’t see how Jesus could exist as an immaterial person, and then become a person generated by a physical body. To me, this would seem to become two separate persons. Concerning, Merrick’s response to composite substance dualism, I think I agree with him here too. If I am correct, even Descartes acknowledged that personhood (consciousness) is an indivisible unit. It does just seem that there is only one object of consciousness (I would like to hear more reasoning on this, though.
One last thought concerning Merrick’s “Having a Body is Necessary for Incarnation” Argument (Most recent handout). In the first premise, he states “If substance dualism is true, then one can continue to exist and continue to be human after the body dies and prior to resurrection”. Is it that absurd to think that, upon physical death, the soul could-would continue to exist as a person but not a human? Personhood, consciousness, and mental activity seem to be the most essential parts of who I am, so what is so crazy or bad about claiming I would continue to exist as a soul ( a person), but not as a human (a body). This was my original understanding of substance dualism. So… Humanity = Soul + Body. Soul = Me (Immaterial Consciousness). Body = Physical. Is this not substance dualism? Is this an absurd, crazy, or objectionable notion?
Will -- I would agree with your first paragraph, it does seem that whatever view of personhood we choose, we run into significant mystery (aka logical problems) related to the Incarnation. Thus far, no view seems to allow a really superior explanation of the Incarnation. Each view finds the Incarnation problematic. (and maybe that's the way it was meant to be...I know that was an un-philosophical comment, but there it is).
ReplyDeleteAll these arguments have clarified that perhaps I did not understand substance dualism as well as I initially thought I did. However there are so many competing accounts of the details that I'm a bit confused. Well let me clarify my position: I would maintain my belief, held previously to this class, that there is something very important about bodies -- whatever we claim the relationship of "me" to "my body" is -- whether I simply am my body, or if I am an immaterial thing causally and epistemically related to my body. These arguments for physicalism have only affirmed my belief in the profundity and importance of bodies. And yet I remain unconvinced that we are solely and simply bodies.
--Faith B.
For starters, it seems to me that we run into some problems when we affirm some form of emergent dualism a la Hasker, at least as Christians. To claim that God the Son is necessarily self-generated, yet also generated by complex brain interactions. The resulting problem seems to be that God the Son is essentially self-generated, yet also generated by his brain. Although it seems possible that two sources can generate the same object (e.g., two power generators can simultaneously power the same light), it seems counterintuitive to suppose that an essentially self-generated thing can also be generated by something else. In what sense would this other source generate the essentially self-generated thing? It doesn't seem that there is such a sense. So there seems to me to be a pretty clear problem for emergent dualism when applied to the Incarnation.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to the argument against substance dualism, I'm not totally sure if the argument given is good. I'll have to think about it more.
At this point, I'm still camped with the materialists. It seems to me that the arguments for materialism and against substance dualism are rationally strong, at least from the thinking I've done about them.
Blake H.
I do not know precisely how William Hasker would defend Emergent Dualism - I am not even sure, based on the description, what a person actually is on his account – but I will assume that Hasker’s view is not that persons are identical to their mind, which is generated by the complex workings of the body. Hasker could say that the person is the body and the mental properties that are produced by the complex interactions of the brain and other features of the body that are relevant to consciousness (isn’t that just Composite Dualism, though?). So under that articulation of the view, the Son of God would not be generated by the body of Jesus, for that would be to presume, wrongly, that a person is identical to the mental properties that are produced by the interactions within the body. The son of God would become flesh, which would then (simultaneously, I suppose?) produce mental properties. Jesus would not be both self-generating and generated by his body, but it seems like he could just be self-generated – as a body which generates mental properties. So… this may have totally been trashing Hasker’s view, but it is a manner in which he could get out of Merricks’ objection, which seems to presume the identity of a person with a soul.
ReplyDeleteMerricks’ objection to Composite Dualism honestly makes no sense to me. According to Merricks, “The dualist who denies that a person is identical with a soul must say that there are two objects with mental properties (a person and her soul) where normally we think that there is one.” I see no reason that a Composite Dualist would be committed to claiming anything like the existence of two objects with mental properties (or at least two objects of the same class of objects, which is the only way that this can be objectionable) … am I wrong in saying that a Composite Dualist would defend the notion that the person is the composite of body and soul, where the soul is understood as the mental properties and the body the physical? So, any particular person has mental properties – which just are the properties provided by the soul. Ummmm. So what’s the problem? It does not seem to me like a Composite Dualism must say anything even close to what Merricks’ posited for their view… The person and the soul are just two different classes of objects under the Composite Dualist model. Composite Dualism is like saying that the hand possesses fingernail properties in virtue of the finger (as a part of the composite of objects which compose the hand, including the palm, etc.) possessing fingernail properties. It is not that two different objects of the same class possess fingernail properties, for fingers are just part of the hand. The hand possesses fingernail properties… but it is in virtue of a more specific part of the hand – the fingers – possessing those fingernail properties. Similarly, the soul – the thinking part of the person –is just part of the person and is the thinking part of the person. The body digests food in virtue of the digesting part of the body – the stomach – digesting. Am I just really far off, because I think that Merrick’s objection (and Zimmerman’s objection, for the same reasons) is rubbish. Forgive me, but I just don’t see it.
I have not definitively chosen a position regarding the nature of human persons. I have come to one conclusion – the body is essential, in some manner or another, to human personhood. So, I am anything but a substance dualist. I find the substance dualist position wildly implausible for a number of reasons, many of which revolve around the importance of the human body. Perhaps my only other conclusion is my preference to use “mind” instead of “soul” in order to avoid that unnecessary religiously loaded term in favor of language that is more closely tied to common speech. But that’s purely a preference.
Tim.
It seems as if Hasker’s argument is still communicating there is something primary about the body. He has given us an interesting and almost fanciful explanation of how a soul “works,” but I’m not sure if he has given us any reason for believing that humans even have a soul. I’m not sure how Merricks is using the Incarnation to argue against Hasker.
ReplyDeleteI think the second argument offered by Zimmermon and Merricks is quite clear. I see even less reason for beliving that people are composites of both immaterial soul and material body. This might have more to do with my having doubts that we even have or are immaterial souls. While it seems at least possible that we might consists of two different mental properties, I haven’t heard or read many reasons for thinking that is true. Not to mention that there would probably be interaction issues to consider if we did have reason for thinking the composite view was correct. Kaleb, I understand your confusion over whether or not a composite dualist would have to argue there are two types of mental properties or abilities. But, it seems as if a composite dualist would accept that with the brain, there is also brain function. It seems as if science does offer support for thinking that the brain does result in emotions, thoughts, memories. So, if we accept that a person is made up of a body(which has a brain that has mental function) as well as made up of a soul(which traditionally is viewed as having some sort of conscious or mental function), then there seems to be two mental properties there. Perhaps we could argue otherwise if we take the soul to be something quite different from how we usually think of it.
I suppose I’m still leaning towards a materialist view. At this point it seems to me as if a lot of times we like to argue there is a separate soul mainly because we think that is the only or best way to value others. For whatever reason, some of us feel as if we’re diminishing who we are by arguing that we might just be our physical make up. I lean toward this view because it seems not only intuitively correct and has minimal objections to how that would work, but it also seems possible to support it from the Biblical perspective.
I personally am learning towards a type of dualism. I suppose the biggest reason that I have for thinking this is this is what I think the bible most likely teaches and since the Bible is the word of God and since a perfect God would not deceive then the bible must be true.
ReplyDeleteBut also I really think that materialism has its problems like the fact that the composition of the body is changing and is made of all new cells every 7 years. And the idea of a part of us that seems to stay the same even after our death seems to be hard to swallow because we have not found that part of us.
Dualism since it deals with invisible souls can point to the soul as that which keeps us the same and does not have to find a material thing to point to.
I think my tendency when discussing problems like those presented above are to come up with pretty fantastic (not in the "wonderful" sense of the term)explanations as to how it could be coherent for one to posit a certain view. So, regarding emergent dualism, I think we could come up with an explanation that addresses the concerns of Merricks', but it would require a whole lot of explanation and perhaps rejection of some traditional Christian beliefs. Briefly, I was entertaining the notion that if we can escape some of the limitations imposed by a linear view of time, maybe we could explain how Jesus' developing a soul while being a human could actually be feasible, and then something about living the perfect human life and thereby participating in the Trinity the way humanity was intended to do, would serve as justification for this view. But since usually my contributions of this sort are a reminder that the simplest explanation which requires no rejection of church tradition is the one we are seeking, I'll not elaborate on that, but instead I accept Merricks' rejection as pretty decent.
ReplyDeleteAs for composite dualism, it strikes me as a bit of a stretch to say that there are two objects with mental properties. Isn't the whole point of composite dualism that there is only one person? The language used in this argument might be where I object. "A person and her soul" seems like a phrase inconsistent with composite dualism.
I want to be a dualist... I'm not sure where I stand though. I think that we have encountered some pretty decent objections to a dualist view, but I haven't heard anything terribly compelling about physicalism, either. So sure, for now, I'll present myself as a dualist.
First, I don't see how that soul then is considered nonphysical. As for the argument in how it relates to the incarnation, I think it sort of simplifies emergent Dualism. I think it could appeal Van Inwagen idea that God resides separate in a nonphysical 'world' and that his spirit has the ability to intervene on the physical, because he believes that God the Son is not formed of the right genetic materials...I think that's reasonable.
ReplyDeleteSubstance dualism as Merricks presents it, I'm not persuaded by. There is too much influence on 'the mind' for me to really give much merit.
Before this class, I considered myself dualist, but since we've gone over articles, materialism makes much more sense to me. I do like the idea of emergent dualism, and from the little understanding i have of it, it doesn't seem to violate materialism, just give another label to the thing that emerges by the body.
Will-
ReplyDeleteI do think that your last paragraph made sense. I think it is no more bizarre to say that we exist the way you outlined than to posit any other view. The distinction you drew between being human and being a person seems to be an acceptable one.
Blake-
Maybe Hasker's sketch of emergent dualism was too brief for me to understand it fully, but I guess I fail to see how two sources would be generating the same thing if emergent dualism is true. I guess I read it that the process of body of Jesus generated Jesus, and perhaps another way of saying it is that Jesus is self-generated, but using two ways to describe the same phenomenon does not mean there are, in fact, two sources. Or did I miss something?