Brandon Rickabaugh is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Research Scholar of Philosophy of Technology and Culture at Palm Beach Atlantic University and J. P. Moreland is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Both have written extensively on the subject of consciousness. Their recent book The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism explores and defends a contemporary substance dualism. In this Recently Published Book Spotlight, they discuss the format of the book and their defense of substance dualism, their motivation for writing it, and what they hope it accomplishes.
What is your work about?
We argue that substance dualism must be considered a serious contender among competing mind-body views. More specifically, we defend Mere Substance Dualism (SD), according to which the human person (i) is comprised of a soul (a fundamental, immaterial substance) and a physical body, (ii) capable of existing without a body, but not without his/her soul, and (iii) the mental life of which is possessed and unified by his/her soul. Additionally, throughout the book, we develop a positive model, a synthesis of mere substance dualism with neo-Aristotelian metaphysics, and insights regarding ontology and consciousness from Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl, among others.
What topics do you discuss in the work, and why do you discuss them?
The book is divided into six parts. Part one includes three chapters. The first introduces our overall argument and the current state of dualism and naturalism. Chapter two analyzes two forms of naturalism: staunch naturalism (everything—all particulars, events, properties, relations within the universe—is strictly physical as the hard sciences, especially physics, characterize that) and faint-hearted naturalism (staunch naturalism with the adoption of sui generis emergent entities). We show how both forms have set the agenda for doing philosophy. We provide epistemic criteria for adjudicating rival viewpoints related to the ontology of consciousness and the subject. We conclude the chapter by providing defeaters for a faint-hearted naturalist appeal to emergent entities. In chapter three, we develop a detailed Husserlian mereology of parts, wholes, unity, relations, and aggregates, which are applied to arguments for and the development of SD throughout the book.
Part two has two chapters. Chapter four provides the first extensive defense of SD arguments from introspection against the most cited objections from Paul Churchland and John Searle. In doing so, we show that the anti-intuition arguments are based on an outdated philosophy of science, beg the question, and are based on mischaracterizations. Chapter five focuses on the phenomenologically and empirically established fact that SD seems true to dualists and physicalists alike, which is used to press what we call the hard meta-problem of consciousness. Moreover, it develops a detailed SD account of monadic intentionality, self-knowledge, and knowledge by acquaintance.
Part three develops two main arguments from the fundamental unity of conscious beings to dualism. The first shows that the unity of phenomenal consciousness cannot be explained by standard physicalism, emergentism, or panpsychism. Instead, the best explanation for the unity of phenomenal consciousness is a true unity, a substantial soul. The next chapter advances an argument for the diachronic enduring soul that we call The Mereological Argument. Then, we defend the two most frequently attacked premises of the Mereological Argument and critically examine and reject two physicalist alternatives to a simple immaterial self—Chisholm’s “atomic” simple view and the homeodynamic biological systems view.
Part four has two chapters, which advance new and updated arguments from modality and libertarian free will. After presenting and clarifying our version of the modal argument, we state and provide defeaters for criticisms of the two crucial premises of our argument: the contingent physicalism proffered by Trenton Merricks and by Andrew Bailey and modal skepticism with a special focus on the move from conceivability to metaphysical possibility. Along the way, we examine three different attempts to work out a plausible theory of modal knowledge: the views of Timothy O’Connor, George Bealer, and Edmund Husserl. The chapter concludes with a rebuttal of five ubiquitous objections to modal arguments of our sort. In chapter nine, we document the difficulty of reconciling libertarian freedom with both versions of naturalism and the relevant sort of physicalism each entails; we provide and clarify our unique argument for Staunch Libertarian Agency (SLA) and state what we take to be its most fundamental epistemic justification. We offer a detailed analysis of SLA, a formal characterization of it, followed by a statement and defense of six features of SLA. The chapter moves to a presentation and rejection of four representative alternatives to SLA: Dennett’s free will irrealism, Searle’s creative compatibilism, Kane’s faint-hearted libertarianism, and Tempe and Jacobs’ minimal naturalism and minimal libertarianism. The chapter concludes with a careful examination of the problem of causal closure and (alleged) top-down causation, with a particular focus on rebutting emergentist solutions.
In part five, we respond to forms of the interaction problem: difficulties with causal connections between such disparate entities, the conservation-of-energy difficulty, and the problem of causal pairing. Next, we respond to nine neuroscientific objections to substance dualism and conclude by addressing the problem of the explanatory impotence of substance dualism in explaining what causes consciousness. Along the way, we respond to a related difficulty, viz., the idea of soul stuff and the via negative employed in its characterization.
The final chapter is divided into four broad research projects—conceptual, methodological, developmental, and applied—within which we make proposals, some more detailed than others. We highlight the fact that SD has a robust research program worth pursuing and suggest particular research projects we think are likely to bear fruit. Conceptual research projects include charting the logical space of SD and drawing attention to the four main contemporary versions of SD. Methodological research projects include developing empirically informed and testable SD, ontologically serious, and employing consciousness-first and analytic phenomenology methods. Developmental research projects include a rigorous taxonomy of SD theses of embodiment, the unity of the person, and hylomorphic SD. Lastly, the applied research projects include SD approaches to epistemology, content externalism, social psychology, mental health, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.
How do you relate your work to other well-known philosophies?
Thomas Nagel reminded us that issues in philosophy of mind are global and not local. By this, he meant that when one is deciding on a view in philosophy of mind, one must also take into account broad worldview issues that inform and are informed by that view, especially the questions of (1) How such a thing could exist in the ontology of one’s worldview? And (2) How such a thing could come-to-be in the diachronic etiological narrative of one’s worldview? Our book makes explicit mention of how the worldviews of staunch naturalism (the universe and everything in it is entirely physical) and faint-hearted naturalism (strong naturalism plus various sui generis emergent entities) shape and provide epistemic justification for the methodologies, projects, views, and arguments adopted in philosophy of mind, and conversely. We also provide the same analysis in light of theism as a chief rival to both forms of naturalism. When we lay out virtually all the main arguments for or against mere substance dualism, we treat these arguments independently of worldview considerations, but we also see all these considerations as another layer of reflection, and this makes our book unique.
Why did you feel the need to write this work?
We were passionate about writing this specific book for several reasons: 1. We had new insights and arguments regarding the major considerations and alternatives to generic substance dualism. 2. We felt the need to bring all the major arguments just cited into one non-edited volume. 3. We wanted to provide a unique approach to the dialectic about mere substance dualism that took into account broader worldview considerations. 4. We wanted the book to be rigorous, up-to-date, and pervasive in scope to provide a go-to resource for those of all persuasions in philosophy of mind, theological anthropology, and religious studies. 5. We also wanted to chart a course for future work by fellow substance dualists of various forms. 6. We wanted to set the record straight as to the current viability of generic substance dualism vis a vis different forms of physicalism regarding the human person. 7. Philosophy of mind has been stuck for a long time in debates about consciousness. Happily, in the last decade or so, there has been a growing interest in discussing the possessor and unifier of consciousness, viz., the self/ego/mind/soul. Our book is an attempt to facilitate more of that growing interest.
What effect do you hope your work will have?
As mentioned earlier, too much of philosophy of mind has focused on issues and alternatives regarding consciousness. While there has been a growing interest in the subject of consciousness for a decade or so, we hope our book will promote more work on who we are. We believe our book is a cutting-edge work that could help influence the field going forward regarding framing the issues to be addressed, adopting the proper methodology for reflection about the subject of consciousness, given the subject matter, and in highlighting major arguments that need to be developed by substance dualists and more deeply critiqued by physicalists. We also hope that in graduate seminars or upper-division undergraduate courses, professors will make substance dualism a significant focus of their courses. If they do, we think our book would be an excellent choice for accomplishing that goal.
Brandon Rickabaugh
Brandon Rickabaugh is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Research Scholar of Philosophy of Technology and Culture at Palm Beach Atlantic University. His work has won multiple awards and has been published in academic journals and books with presses such as Wiley-Blackwell and Oxford University Press and, most recently, co-authored (with J. P. Moreland) The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism (Wiley Blackwell). He has two forthcoming books, The Conscious Mind Unified (Bloomsbury) and What Is Consciousness? (IVP Academic). Dr. Rickabaugh is a Cultura Fellow at The Martin Institute in Santa Barbara, CA.
J. P. Moreland
J. P. Moreland is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He has authored, edited, or contributed papers to ninety-five books, including Universals (McGill-Queen’s), Consciousness and the Existence of God (Routledge), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, and Debating Christian Theism (Oxford.) and, most recently, (with Brandon Rickabaugh) The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism (Wiley Blackwell.) He has also published over one hundred articles in journals such as Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, American Philosophical Quarterly, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, MetaPhilosophy, Philosophia Christi, Religious Studies, and Faith and Philosophy. Moreland was selected in August 2016 and 2022 by The Best Schools as one of the 50 most influential living philosophers in the world.
Maryellen Stohlman-Vanderveen is the APA Blog's Diversity and Inclusion Editor and Research Editor. She graduated from the London School of Economics with an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy in 2023 and currently works in strategic communications. Her philosophical interests include conceptual engineering, normative ethics, philosophy of technology, and how to live a good life.
