The two ideologies, dualism and materialism are antagonistic. Dualism refers to a school of thought in philosophy that suggests that the mind and the body are not identical. It tries to explain that the mind is nonphysical and goes beyond the concrete brain. It adds that the mind is non-material , spiritual in a way that includes consciousness and eternity. To understand this concept better one would need to imagine the body and the brain as a hardware consisting of physical attributes and the mind as an unseen soul or spirit that manifests itself through the brain. On the other hand, materialism holds that everything in the entire universe is made from physical materials including the human mind and that spiritual characteristic do not exist in the world. It states that the body and the mind are unified and are the same. The two Greek philosophers, Hart and Papineau, weighed on this thought with the latter supporting materialism and the former dualism. This paper will describe in details the concept of dualism according to Hart and materialism as brought out by Papineau.
Hart in his defence of Cartesian dualism constructs an argument that we are a non-material entity who could perhaps not exist in a disembodied state. He states that we are a non-material entity that is lodged in a physical body. He further adds that the non-material self is lodged into the skull and that the disembodied self who perceives the real concrete world would be located in the material world at that point of view. Hart argues that argues that mind-body interaction could be as a result of the transfer of conserved quantities of psychic energy. Still, the mind as described by Hart lacks charge, mass, spin and all other attributes that characterize physical particles as asserted Dolphijn and Van der Tuin (2011) .
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Hart defines measurable quantities of psychic energy regarding their ability to sustain beliefs, not in terms of physical effects. On imagination, Hart states that if you were to imagine that you were disembodied, then it is possible that you should be disembodied ( Dolphijn & Van der Tuin, 2011) . Everything is possible so long as one imagined, i.e. if you imagined you were rich then it is very possible that you would become rich. He believes that imagination is the basic and the most favoured access to realism (possibility) and that it is the best line of reasoning to achieve truth. Therefore, no one has a moral authority to dismiss any one’s imaginations because they are the fundamentals for truth and possibilities.
Papineau who was a materialist was concerned with the connection between the mind and the brain. He states that the effects normally attributed to conscious, mentality and spiritualism have got physical causes. These two causes overlap to have an identical property. One of the examples he gave out to support his thought was that if he fell consciously thirsty, he would move to the fridge to pick a beer and so there has to be a physical process that led to the thirst. His argument was based on three aspects; one, ‘conscious mental occurrences have got supported physical effects’. This means that our conscious leads to what we do physically as asserted by Allen (2013) .
The second aspect states that all physical effects are as a result of prior physical histories. This implies that physical events in the body are a chain of interdependent occurrences. He further adds that these physical effects are from two distinct sources, the muscles and through the firing of neurones facilitated by the brain. The third aspect states that physical effects of a conscious cause and a physical cause aren’t always determined by distinct causes . He summarizes by saying that physical effects have both conscious and physical causes which are not distinct. Therefore, dualism and materialism his two cause’s overlap to produce the desired effect.
Papineau’s argument seems more convincing than Harts. The former tries to explain that the mind is a different entity from the body, independent and that it is nonphysical while the latter explains that there is a relationship between the physical aspects of life with the physical mind. First, I believe that the various emotions and reactions from the body, both physical and mental are as a result of coordination between the brain which is physical (proven by the nervous system in the body).The brain does not exist in distinction from the body, but they rather act in a synergy to ensure that a desirable effect is achieved . Imaginations are just a manipulation and synchronisation of our daily endurances in life, and they do not necessarily have to come to the possibility as stated by Hart.
Papineau, on the other hand, tries to figure the body as a material structure made up of the brain and the body whose actions are inter-dependable. Hart also tries to explain that one can imagine themselves with the mind from the body to have two separate entities. That sounds quite unrealistic unless it’s wild imagination, almost close to being supernatural. Hart maintains that you can become whatever you imagine, and whatever your imagination forms the basis of truth. This might be false because imagination alone cannot guarantee reality or truth unless one works on it; further justifying Papineau’s argument ( Allen, 2013) .
In conclusion, both theories try to explore and explain the relationship between the concrete and the non-physical part of a human being. They try to question the interdependence between thought and action. One explains that the mind and the body occur in distinction, the body being the physical part and the mind software in it that can also have its own life while another suggesting that both the body and the mind are physical and do not occur in distinction, but rather an entity. Though Papineau’s theory can easily be proven due to the various life processes we experience, it’s very difficult to prove Hart’s theory due to its complexity and can only be proven by imagination. However various philosophers have also delved on the matter, therefore, giving different views and filling in the gaps that might have been left with these two philosophers. Both theories are however controversial and contentious with different strengths and weaknesses and can only be helped by thorough proving. It shows how it is difficult to understand human beings due to their complexity, and hence it will remain a very debatable subject in the near future .
References
Allen, P. L. (2013). An Augustinian Philosopher between Dualism and Materialism: ErnanMcMullin on Human Emergence. Zygon , 48 (2), 294-304.
Dolphijn, R., & Van der Tuin, I. (2011). Pushing dualism to an extreme: On the philosophical impetus of a new materialism. Continental Philosophy Review , 44 (4), 383-400.
