Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. MA by Research in Theology and Religion David Horner September 2018 Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. Submitted by David Horner to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of MA by Research in Theology and Religion in September 2018 This dissertation is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the dissertation may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. 1 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Jonathan Hill and Dr Joel Krueger for their support and encouragement in the writing of this dissertation and for their patience in trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to acknowledge the many conversations, on this and other topics, I have had with my friend and philosopher, Dr Chris Boyne, who sadly died in June of this year. I thank all my other chums at The Bull, Ditchling, for listening to my metaphysical ramblings. And finally, I thank my wife, Linda, for once more putting up with this kind of thing. 2 Abstract This dissertation is a contribution to debates in the philosophy of mind and of personal identity. It presents a critical account of arguments for substance dualism to be found in Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013). Swinburne’s principal claim is that persons are essentially pure mental substances whose sameness over time is constituted by a unique ‘thisness’. A human being consists of two parts: a contingent part, the body (physical substance), and an essential part, the mind or soul (pure mental substance) which is characterised by ‘thisness’. It is, on this account, logically and metaphysically possible that a person can be disembodied. The dissertation analyses Swinburne’s relationship to other major theories in the philosophy of mind, especially his critical rejection of physicalism and materialism. Swinburne mounts a defence of substance dualism by building upon some key fundamental ideas and principles. The first area of discussion is Swinburne’s novel contention that any satisfactory account of the mental and physical lives of human beings must meet the requirements of a ‘metacriterion’ which supports his division of the world into physical and mental substances, properties, events and time. Swinburne underpins the metacriterion by proposing a canonical vocabulary based on a theory of informative designators. The main line of attack here is on the inadequacy of Swinburne’s theory of designation as a convincing theory of how language works and is used. Secondly, the metacriterion is complemented by a theory of privileged access of subjects to their mental events which is not available to others. Criticism of this doctrine is derived from the work of Austin, Ryle and Wittgenstein. Thirdly, Swinburne deploys the principles of credulity and testimony to defend the causal interaction of mental and physical substances. He claims the principles are fundamental, a priori, and epistemic. The argument of the dissertation is that they are none of these things. My conclusion is that Swinburne’s principal arguments for substance dualism and personal identity are unsound. 3 Contents Acknowledgements. ........................................................................................... 2 Abstract .............................................................................................................. 3 Contents ............................................................................................................. 4 List of Tables. ..................................................................................................... 8 Abbreviations. ..................................................................................................... 9 Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................. 10 1 Rationale. ................................................................................................... 10 2 Aims and Objectives. ................................................................................. 11 3 An Overview of Mind, Brain, and Free Will. ............................................... 12 4 My Approach. ............................................................................................. 20 Chapter Two: The Mind/Body Problem......................................................... 23 1 Introduction. ............................................................................................... 23 1.1 A Taxonomy of Metaphysical Views of Consciousness. ...................... 23 2 Physicalism ................................................................................................ 26 2.1 General Characteristics. ...................................................................... 26 2.2 The Errors of Physicalism. .................................................................. 27 2.2.1 The metacriterion argument. ......................................................... 27 2.2.2 The privileged access argument. .................................................. 28 3 Varieties of Physicalism. ............................................................................ 29 3.1 Identity Theory. ................................................................................... 30 3.2 Identity and Modes of Description: Papineau. ..................................... 31 3.3 Functionalism: Putnam and Armstrong. .............................................. 34 3.4 Eliminativism: The Churchlands. ......................................................... 38 3.5 Instrumentalism: Dennett. ................................................................... 40 3.6 Event Identity: Donald Davidson. ........................................................ 42 4 4 Non-Physicalist Theory. ............................................................................. 44 4.1 Property Dualism. ................................................................................ 44 4.2 Epiphenomenalism. ............................................................................. 45 5 Conclusion. ................................................................................................ 46 Chapter Three: A Metacriterion. ................................................................... 48 1 Introduction. ............................................................................................... 48 2 The Metacriterion Argument. ..................................................................... 49 2.1 Swinburne’s philosophy of language. .................................................. 49 2.2 Direct Reference Theories. ................................................................. 54 2.3 Naming and natural kinds. ................................................................... 57 3 Objections to Natural Kinds. ...................................................................... 59 3.1 Composition and natural kinds. ........................................................... 59 3.1.1 The Isotope Argument. ................................................................. 60 3.1.2 The Functional Argument. ............................................................ 60 3.1.3 The Isomer Argument. .................................................................. 61 3.2 Meaning versus composition. .............................................................. 61 3.3 Learning about natural kinds. .............................................................. 63 3.4 Fundamental objections. ..................................................................... 65 4 Informative Designators Revisited. ............................................................ 66 4.1 The problem of transience. .................................................................. 66 4.2 The problem of fictive designators. ..................................................... 70 5 Conclusion. ................................................................................................ 72 Chapter Four: Privileged Access. ................................................................. 74 1 Introduction. ............................................................................................... 74 2 What is privileged access? ........................................................................ 74 2.1 Definition. ............................................................................................ 74 2.2 The argument. ..................................................................................... 76 3 Perception of Mental Events. ..................................................................... 79 5 3.1 Two types of mental event. ................................................................. 79 3.2 ‘Hearing a tune in the mind’. ................................................................ 80 4 Private Self and Private Language. ........................................................... 83 4.1 Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument (PLA). ............................. 83 4.2 Swinburne’s Reply............................................................................... 85 5 A Reconciling Project? ............................................................................... 87 5.1 A science of the