The Soul

The second preliminary is this: We should interpret a biblical passage in light of what its original audience would have understood it to mean. Now it is widely acknowledged that people all over the world throughout the ages have been substance dualists who depict life after death as involving the departure of the soul. This belief predates the bib

Case 2: The Walking Dead is a very popular television show today. In the first season’s final episode, a scientist shows a group of ordinary people a video of the inside workings of a live human brain. It looks like a complex web of wires and nodes, with a multitude of flashing lights traveling to and fro. He then declares matter-of-factly that all

This happiness has three important aspects. ... First, it is not the mere possession of pleasant sensations. You could have pleasant sensations, say, by taking drugs all day or by having people constantly lie to you about how wonderful and intelligent you are. ... Second, such a happiness can only be possessed if you do what you truly want to witho

Therefore, and this is critical, strict physicalism cannot be established by showing that mental states and brain states are interdependent on, causally related, or constantly conjoined with each other in an embodied person. Physicalism needs identity to make its case, and if something is true, or possibly true of a mental substance, property, or e

In such a world, there could be mindless zombies with brains and nervous systems but without consciousness. This is what we mean when we say that the existence and nature of matter are independent of the existence of consciousness.

There are several capacities that animals do not seem to have. We have already mentioned libertarian freedom of the will. Animals also do not seem to have moral awareness. Animals do not seem to grasp key notions central to morality such as the notion of a virtue, of a duty, of another thing having intrinsic value and rights, of universalizing a mo

As mentioned above, the Pharisees were among the groups that accepted 1–3 and they shaped the thinking of the common people in Jesus’ day. The Sadducees appear to be the major exception to the rule, but opinion is divided about the precise nature of their beliefs.

Here’s a simple definition of knowledge: To represent reality in thought or experience the way it really is on the basis of adequate grounds.

For example, certain mirror neurons are activated in a chimpanzee’s brain when it reaches for food, and those same neurons are activated when the chimpanzee watches another animal reach for food. Scientists think that mirror neurons are the neurological bases for various conscious activities such as experiencing empathy, comprehending the actions o