COUNTERING KIM’S ARGUMENTS AGAINST CARTESIAN DUALISM
Jaegwon Kim’s essay “Against Cartesian Dualism” is a short piece outlining the problems and challenges of substance dualism as defined by Rene Descartes.[1] Kim structures his essay along the follow lines. First, he defines Descartes’ version of substance dualism. He then provides a sampling of arguments in favor of Cartesian dualism. Next, the bulk of the paper is taken up with problems and challenges to this version of dualism. Special focus is placed on the interaction problem and the pairing problem. Finally, Kim briefly mentions physicalist alternatives to substance dualism which he affirms as better philosophical postures toward explaining consciousness. This essay will briefly canvas the main arguments above while providing critical commentary along the way.
Kim begins by describing the basic outline of Descartes’ dualism. For Descartes the human person is a composite of mind and body. The mind is an immaterial substance, and the body is a material substance. The mind is further specified to be (a) not extended in space and (b) not spatially located. These two substances—mind and body—can interact with one another in a causal manner. Kim notes that for Descartes, this interaction between mind and body takes place at a specific point in the brain, namely the pineal gland.
Next, Kim articulates two types of arguments for substance dualism. The first set of arguments are epistemological in nature in that they are “based on supposed epistemological asymmetries between knowledge of minds and knowledge of material things.”[2] Of the three epistemological arguments outlined by Kim, he outlines the “Argument from Subjectivity” in the following manner:
1. For each mind there is a unique subject who has direct access to its contents.
2. No material body has a specially privileged knower—knowledge of material things is in principle public and intersubjective.
3. Therefore, minds are not identical with material bodies.[3]
Kim recognizes that this “could well be the strongest and most plausible epistemological argument.”[4] Furthermore, Kim notes that this argument is based on the idea that each mental occurrence has unique “subject” with direct and privileged cognitive access to that occurrence. In contrast, material objects lack such subjectivity and can, in principle, be analyzable from a third-person perspective which is neither direct nor privileged.
A few critical comments are in order here. First, Kim merely mentions the argument but fails to provide any push back against it. Kim is a materialist, and he should provide some account of how strictly physical entities can have subjectivity.[5] Second, although Kim refers to the above argument as “epistemological” it should be noted that the argument, if successful, makes a substantive metaphysical conclusion. The argument is epistemological only in the sense that it begins with what is known from the first-person perspective. From this starting point the argument reasons from what is known to which preconditions allow for such knowledge. In this sense, the argument has a transcendental-like quality to it.
Kim also notes two metaphysical arguments for substance dualism. The second metaphysical argument considered is a version of the “modal argument” for dualism and reasons as follows:
1. If anything is material, it is essentially material.
2. However, I am possibly immaterial—that is, there is a world in which I exist without a body.
3. Hence, I am not essentially material.
4. Hence, it follows (with the first premise) that I am not material.[6]
Kim challenges this argument by focusing on the second premise’s notion of “conceivability.” Kim notes:
Is something possible just because it is conceivable? In assessing his metaphysical arguments for dualism, therefore, the transitions from conceivability, or epistemological possibility, to metaphysical possibility become critical; their legitimacy will be the crux on which the fate of these arguments depends.[7]
Although Kim notes that the issues of conceivability and metaphysical possibility are complex, he does admit that without a “carefully scrutinized conceivability as a guide to possibility, it is difficult to know what other resources we can call on when we try to determine what is possible and what is not, what is necessarily the case and what is only contingently so, and other such modal matters.”[8] This is a significant admission on Kim’s part and makes the modal argument worthy of serious consideration. Furthermore, if the concept of “conceivability” is reconceptualized in terms of a “rational intuition” based on one’s first-person, direct access to one’s mental states and to one’s self then the modal argument is strengthened.[9]
Kim next moves to the critical challenges facing substance dualism. Foremost among these challenges is the interaction problem.[10] The problem is generated by Descartes’s view that minds and bodies can causally influence one another. From the mind side, conscious states can influence and direct bodily movements and from the body side, objects and events in the physical world are able to cause perceptual experiences and beliefs in the person. Given that the mind, for Descartes, has no spatial extension and is not located in physical space, how is it possible for the mind to causally interact with matter at all? As Kim summarizes, “If bodies can be moved only by contact, how could an unextended mind, which is not even in space, come into contact with material things, even the finest and lightest particles of ‘animal spirits,’ thereby causing them to move?”[11] As Kim notes, Descartes’ answer to this challenge was to appeal to the “primitive notion” of the mind-body union. As Kim defines it, a primitive notion is “a fundamental notion that is intelligible in its own right and cannot be explained in terms of other more basic notions.”[12] Kim acknowledges that it could, indeed, be the case that this idea of a primitive notion as applied to the mind-boy issue is correct. Nevertheless, Kim queries whether Descartes can invoke this defense considering the unextended nature of the soul with is lack of spatial location.
In response to Kim and the interaction argument a few items should be noted in terms of pushing back against the argument. First, a modification of Descartes’ view may be in order. As noted above, Descartes thought of the soul as both (a) not extended in space and (b) not spatially located. Kim makes much of this lack of spatial location. However, if Descartes’ view is modified to allow for spatial location, albeit without extension in space, this may go some way to relieving tensions.[13] Kim will take up this potential modification later in his essay. Second, even without a detailed account of how a nonspatial mind can interact with the body one may still be justified in positing such interaction. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro argue:
It looks as if the fundamental issue is whether it is possible for a nonspatial object to exist. If such an object can exist, then it is not obvious in strictly a priori or conceptual terms that it cannot interact causally with an object located in space. Moreover, if a person has good reason for believing that he is a soul which is nonspatial in nature, and if he also has good reason to believe that a certain physical body is his in virtue of his causally interacting with it then he has good reason to believe that there must be a noncausal pairing relation in which he stands to his body, where this relation is distinct from, yet makes possible, the causal interaction between his soul (him) and his body. This is the case, even if he cannot state what this noncausal pairing relation is.[14]
Goetz and Taliaferro’s argument here seems to be a more sophisticated variant of Descartes’ idea of the mind-body relation being a “primitive notion.” What they have done is to pocket the primitive notion in the larger argumentation for the immaterial self. If one finds this argumentation both cogent and persuasive, then one is justified in believing in some sort of causal interaction even without a detailed explanation for how such interaction is possible. This can be further fortified by highlighting the fact that even causation among physical objects is not fully explicable so the inability to fully explain mental to material causation should not be rejected out-of-hand.[15]
From the interaction problem, Kim moves to consider the challenge of the “pairing problem.” Kim sets up this objection by analyzing an example of physical causation. Two guns (A and B) are fired with the result that two persons (X and Y) are killed. The firing of gun A causes the death of X, and the firing of gun B causes the death of Y. Kim asks, “What principle governs the ‘pairing’ of the right cause with the right effect?”[16] Kim argues that the key principle is a spatiotemporal relation between the specific gun and the victim that generates the proper pairing relationship. But it is precisely this spatiotemporal relationship that is unavailable for the Cartesian dualist. Since Cartesian dualism is committed to a soul that is not located in space and can bear no spatial relationship to anything. This results in the difficulty of explaining why a particular soul is causally paired to a particular body. If there are two souls (C and D) what is it that pairs soul C to a particular body to the exclusion of soul D? Kim also considers a variation on this problem:
There are two physical objects, P1 and P2, with the same intrinsic properties, and an action of an immaterial soul causally affects one of them, say P1, but not P2. How can we explain this? Since P1 and P2 have identical intrinsic properties, they must have the same causal capacity (“passive” causal powers as well as “active” causal powers), and it would seem that the only way to make them discernible in a causal context is their spatial relations to other things.[17]
Kim thus concludes that this objection threatens the Cartesian mind with “total causal isolation from each other as well as the physical world… If we are right, we have a causal argument for a physicalist ontology. Causality requires a spacelike structure, and as far as we know, the physical domain is the only domain with a structure of that kind.”[18]
How might a substance dualist respond to this “pairing objection?” First, the consequences of Kim’s view in which there is no causation without a spatial relationship should be noted. Kim’s view effectively rules out classical theism in which God (an immaterial being) enters into causal relationship with his creation. Kim’s view also rules out a singularity being the point at which Big Bang emerges.[19] To the extent that these two items can be defended with philosophical and scientific arguments, this will entail that Kim view is incorrect.
The second way a substance dualist can respond is to, again, as earlier noted, modify Cartesian dualism. Alternative views of substance dualism are better able to handle the pairing problem.[20] For example, J. P. Moreland’s “Thomistic-like Dualism” considers the body as a mode of the soul.
Here, the soul is a substance with an essence or inner nature containing, as a primitive unity, a complicated, structural arrangement of capacities/dispositions for developing a body. Taken collectively this entire ordered structure is unextended, holenmerically present throughout the body, and constitutes the soul’s principle of activity that governs the precise, ordered sequence of changes the substance will (normally) undergo to grow and develop.[21]
Brandon Rickabaugh notes that Moreland’s view provides a plausible solution to the pairing problem.
According to this hybrid view there is a connection between soul/body or mind/brain that is more primitive than causation. In fact, this hylomorphic connection can ground mind/body causation. The soul animates, informs, unifies, forms and is hollenmerically [sic] present to its body. Mind is a faculty of my soul and my brain is an inseparable part of my body. Consequently, my soul relates to my body in virtue of these relations. This connection is fundamental and prior to causation. Hence, the pairing problem is not a problem at all. Each individual soul has a specific body as a mode. The pairing of body and soul is guaranteed by the ontology of the soul.[22]
Thus, the substance dualist has resources available to counter the Pairing Problem.
Although Descartes’ version of substance dualism refuses to locate the soul in space, Kim does consider the possibility of modifying this aspect of Descartes’ thought by locating immaterial minds in space. He argues that this option is “fraught with complications and difficulties and probably not worth considering as an option.”[23] He articulates two problems. First, he asks about disembodied souls; the idea being, how could such entities be located in space. Second, he asks regarding the soul, “exactly where is your body is it located?”[24]
Regarding disembodied souls, the substance dualist who is a theist could argue that God upholds the being of the human soul as a finite entity that is spatially located but without extension in space. Kim will, no doubt, find such a move to be ad hoc but if the theist has independent reasons to rationally affirm the existence and nature of such a deity then the ad hoc-ness will be lessened.[25] In reference to Kim’s second objection regarding the soul’s precise location, Moreland’s view, as noted above, appeals to the ancient tradition of the soul being holenmerically present in the body. This is the idea that the soul is not located at one particular spot but rather is present throughout the entirety of the body.[26]
Kim rounds out his essay with a brief discussion of physicalist options for understanding the mind. He mentions property dualism and reductive physicalism. He also notes that each of these broad positions has various forms with differing nuances. He is quick to add, “However, they all share one thing in common: the rejection of immaterial minds.”[27] Kim does not mention, however, any of the many problems with these physicalist views nor any difficulties with physicalism in general. Physicalism, thus, serves as an ontological presupposition with attendant methodological constraints.
In conclusion, Kim’s essay “Against Cartesian Dualism” is a short but full articulation of the kinds of difficulties Cartesian substance dualism faces. The interaction problem and the pairing problem are developed in some detail. The issue of “conceivability” is also considered when Kim outlines some of the basic arguments in defense of substance dualism. However, Kim’s arguments can be effectively countered by substance dualists. At times this requires modification of Cartesian forms of substance dualism and, as was shown, a Thomistic-like version of substance dualism holds promise for answering the key objections. In the end, it appears that Kim’s precommitment to physicalism as philosophical worldview drives many of his arguments.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bailey, Andrew M., Joshua Rasmussen, and Luke Van Horn. “No Pairing Problem,”
Philosophical Studies 154 (2011): 349-360.
Goetz, Stewart and Charles Taliaferro. A Brief History of the Soul. New Jersey: Wiley, 2011.
Kim, Jaegwon. “Against Cartesian Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to Substance
Dualism. Eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland, 152-165. New Jersey: Wiley, 2018.
Lycan, William G. “Redressing Substance Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to
Substance Dualism. Eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland, 22-39. New Jersey: Wiley, 2018.
Moreland, J. P. “In Defense of a Thomistic-Like Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to
Substance Dualism. Eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland, 102-122. New Jersey: Wiley, 2018.
Moreland, J. P. “Oppy on the Argument from Consciousness,” Faith and Philosophy 29.1
(2012): 70-83.
Rickabaugh, Brandon L. “Emergence Cannot Save Dualism, but Neo-Aristotelianism Might,”
9. Online: https://www.newdualism.org/papers-Jul2020/Rickabaughrevised.pdf
Taliaferro, Charles. “Substance Dualism: A Defense,” in The Blackwell Companion to
Substance Dualism. Eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland, 43-60. New Jersey: Wiley, 2018.
[1] Jaegwon Kim, “Against Cartesian Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland (New Jersey: Wiley, 2018), 152-167.
[3] Kim, “Against Cartesian Dualism,” 155. I have numbered the premises and conclusion for ease of formulation.
[5] Kim’s materialism is broadcast early in his essay when he writes, “Today, any proposed general ontology of the world, not just views about the mind-body relation, is defined by its relationship to materialism…” Kim, “Against Cartesian Dualism,” 153.
[9] This insight is due to J. P. Moreland in his lecture of 2/2/2022 in his TTPH 735 class “Advanced Studies in Philosophy of Mind.”
[10] Kim alleges early on his essay that is the problem of “mind-body interaction that in the end brought down Cartesian dualism.” Kim, “Against Cartesian Dualism,” 154.
[11] Kim, “Against Cartesian Dualism,” 158. Kim is developing the objection initially raised by Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia when she responded to Descartes in a letter in 1643.
[13] William Lycan, no substance dualist himself, defends substance dualism against a battery of arguments and in so doing argues that a revision of Descartes’ nonspatial minds would help alleviate the interaction problem. See William G. Lycan, “Redressing Substance Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland (New Jersey: Wiley, 2018), 27.
[14] Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul, (New Jersey: Wiley, 2011), 138.
[15] Charles Taliaferro argues that we have a clearer concept of mental causation than we do of physical causation. “We have a clear grasp of mental causation and in exercising our mental powers we may readily grasp that there is causal interaction between our bodily states and mental lives. We do not, however, have a lucid understanding of physical causation, and we have only a wobbly concept of it; rather we have a clearer understanding of mental causation and such mental causation is essential for us to even begin to understand what is involved in physical causation.” Charles Taliaferro, “Substance Dualism: A Defense,” in The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland (New Jersey: Wiley, 2018), 48.
[19] These two consequences concerning God’s interaction with the world and the singularity of the Big Bang are brought up by Andrew M. Bailey, Joshua Rasmussen, and Luke Van Horn, “No Pairing Problem,” Philosophical Studies 154 (2011), 351.
[20] Kim could attempt to counter this move by claiming that his use of the Pairing Argument is only directed against Cartesian substance dualism. Two quick rebuttals to this move: (1) This shows a lack of breadth of analysis by its refusal to consider non-Cartesian views and (2) as Bailey, Rasmussen, and Van Horn note, Kim, in his book Physicalism or Something Near Enough “employs the Pairing Argument to rule out substance dualism simpliciter.” Bailey, Rasmussen, and Van Horn, “No Pairing Problem,” 359.
[21] J. P. Moreland, “In Defense of a Thomistic-Like Dualism,” in The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland (New Jersey: Wiley, 2018), 105.
[22] Brandon L. Rickabaugh, “Emergence Cannot Save Dualism, but Neo-Aristotelianism Might,” 9. Online: https://www.newdualism.org/papers-Jul2020/Rickabaughrevised.pdf
[25] Moreland notes, “The notion of ‘being ad hoc” is notoriously difficult to specify precisely. It is usually characterized as an intellectually inappropriate adjustment of a theory whose sole epistemic justification is to save the theory from falsification. Such an adjustment involves a new supposition to a theory not already implied by its other features.” J. P. Moreland, “Oppy on the Argument from Consciousness,” Faith and Philosophy 29.1 (2012), 78. If the theist has independent reasons to affirm the rationality of belief in God, then this belief will entail certain corollaries regarding God’s powers of conservation of the created order.
[26] As Goetz and Taliaferro note: “For example, Kant endorsed the view, often favored by philosophers like Augustine and Aquinas (see Chapter 2), that the soul is present in its entirety at each point in space where it is natural to locate one of its sensations—which, for all intents and purposes, means that the soul is located in every part of the space occupied by the physical body.” Goetz and Taliaferro, A Brief History of the Soul, (New Jersey: Wiley, 2011), 141.
