User talk:80.242.32.51
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I have a few comments about this page, but being new to this I don't feel up to editing anything.
1.
I think that it may be useful to distinguish two different sorts of dualism. The first - the traditional one - is that the mental and the physical comprise two different types of *stuff*. Someone who thinks that we have a soul, and that this survives after death, is a dualist in this sense.
The second sort of dualist says that mental and physical *properties* are radically different. This may be used as an argument to the first sort of dualism, but not necessarily. For someone could think that mental and physical properties are just different properties of the same basic stuff.
This latter sort of dualism is interesting because the issues that motivate it survive the commonplace idea these days that everything is (completely) made up of physical stuff and subect to complete physical laws. These issues have to do with *explanation*. One important question is this: if we gave physicists enough resources, could they give fully satisfactory explanations of everything that happens? Or do research projects like chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, etc. provide good and irreducible explanations of phenomena, even if everything is at basis physical stuff following the laws of physics?
The formulation of dualism based on 'events' falls somewhat unhelpfully between these two lines, since the question of what counts as an event has been pretty much up for grabs. Anyway, a good reference here would be Donald Davidson's 'Anomalous Monism', which pushes the second kind of dualism and does so by adopting a particular view on the individuation of events.
2.
The arguments against dualism seem pretty weak as specified. The main argument against Cartesian dualism has to be the idea that the success of physics suggests that everything is fully comprised of microphysical stuff, and that this stuff dances to the beat of microphysical laws only. Assuming this, the Cartesian dualist can be forced into the very peculiar parallelism.
The question of *where the interaction takes place* seems unhelpful. One is tempted to retort that you have a narrow, physician's view of causation. Suppose, for instance, that I report that the warning signs prevented accidents. Clearly this is a causal explanation - it's not just a *coincidence* that wherever we have warning signs we have a lack of accidents. But then, just where did this lack of accidents occur? There are plenty of other examples that could be given along this line.
Similarly for the question of *how the interaction takes place*. Surely we have to agree that at some point in causal explanation we will have to appeal to a 'basic law' (ie: things just happen that way). Otherwise you get a very odd infinite regress, with every causal interaction being supported by more basic causal interactions. But then, the Cartesian dualist can appeal to basic laws connecting physical and mental stuff. This kind of move shouldn't seem worrying to anyone post-Hume, I don't think.
Best, Ewan
Please do not put copyrighted material on wikipedia, if you wish to rewrite the D. J. Futuyma article, please do so at D. J. Futuyma/Temp, but use your own words and cite references, do not cut and past from internet sources.--nixie 14:37, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
you've been blocked for 48 hours
You've already been warned, so I don't think you can say you didn't know any better than to post material to "D.J. Futuyma" that is clearly copied and pasted from other sources. If you want to write about this individual, and you believe that he is notable enough for an encyclopedia entry, write about him in your own words. But I have a hard time believing he's all that important to you if you're too lazy to write even one original sentence. Repost copyrighted material again and I will block this IP for an even longer period of time. No further warnings. Postdlf 16:16, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You have posted that copyrighted material at least twice now since you were blocked. That was a few weeks ago so I will give you one more warning just in case you are a different person using this IP and you don't know any better, but if you post that one more time, I will block you again. Academic Challenger 09:20, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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