Examples Of David Hume Substance Dualism

This paper with address the different positions of the mind/body problem. It will discuss what substance dualism is and how Descartes’ understood it. As well it will look at materialism, more specifically reductive and eliminative materialism. With looking at criticism from both, it will be apparent which of the two is more plausible.

Substance dualism is consisted of two foundations, the mind and body. Dualism suggests that the mind is something the exists in a non-physical realm away from the physical world. The bodies that are connected to these minds cannot think and don’t have a physically connected mind. This means that there are two separate substances that exist within one person. Descartes’ came to this understanding by accepting

His skepticism lead him believe that we only know as much about our minds as we do external bodies. Hume is an empiricist, with belief that all we know comes from previous experience, so how can one really identify a sense of self without having previous experience.

Hume believes that the self is but an illusion. That we are indeed subject to our own experiences, but when attempting to reflect we are caught on temporary feelings the feed us on what we think we are. Our understanding of ourselves are like a stage, where many of our perceptions of ourselves become apparent only to fall back. So your own self identity is very mood dependant and can change at a moments notice.

We do not think that when something changes physically that is it a different thing, trees get taller but they are not a different tree. Hume thinks of the person in a similar matter, humans age and grow, but they don’t change from what they are. In the end you are always going to just be a person with perceptions of who you think you are as that same person. So since our idea of self identity is always skewed Hume finds that self identity doesn’t hold