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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Do We Have a Soul?: A Debate

Do We Have a Soul?: A Debate

Olson, Eric T.
Segal, Aaron

Paperback

Series: Little Debates about Big Questions

Philosophy

ISBN10: 0367333643
ISBN13: 9780367333645
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Aug 4 2023
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.69
Height: 0.56 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

Are we made entirely of matter, like sticks and stones? Or do we have a soul--a nonphysical entity--where our mental lives take place?

The authors Eric T. Olson and Aaron Segal begin this accessible and wide-ranging debate by looking at the often-overlooked question of whether we appear in ordinary experience to be material things. Olson then argues that the dependence of our mental lives on the condition of our brains--the fact that general anesthesia causes complete unconsciousness, for instance--is best explained by saying that our mental lives are physical activities in our brains rather than nonphysical activities in the soul. Segal objects that this view is incompatible with two obvious and important facts about ourselves: that there is only one of you rather than trillions of almost identical beings now thinking your thoughts, and that we exist and remain conscious for more than an instant. These facts, he claims, are presupposed in our practical and moral judgments--but they require us to be immaterial things. Olson is forced to concede that there is no easy and uncontroversial answer to these objections but doubts whether taking us to be immaterial would be any help. The debate takes in large philosophical questions extending well beyond dualism and materialism.

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