ARGUMENTS (1) 263a given time true also constrains what can be done in that world at and
after that time.^33
Eliminative materialism, which denies that there are any mental
properties, dismisses the mapping problem by denying that there is
anything that mental descriptions describe. It thereby dismisses the
possibility of distinguishing between good science and bad, and between
science and superstition. Those who claim that the distinction between the
mental and the physical captures, not substances or properties, but ways of
talking, both fail to solve the mapping problem and give no account of the
phenomenological and explanatory differences between the mental and the
material. Property dualists grant that there are both mental and physical
properties, but are no better at dealing with the mapping problem than are
substance dualists. Insofar as its roots are intellectual, the current
disposition to dismiss dualism seems to lie in the hope that if one embraces
property dualism, one can grant the phenomenological and explanatory
differences between the mental and the physical and have the best chance,
some day, of solving the mapping problem. If, as argued earlier, being self-
conscious has strong credentials as a kind-defining property, property
dualism is a longer step toward substance dualism than most property
dualists would like.
Mounting a full-scale defense of a substantivalist and dualist view of
persons would require more space than is available here. What has been
done is this: we have argued that while epistemological arguments for
dualism fail, there are metaphysical arguments of much more power in its
favor, and the objections against it have much less force than is usually
assumed. What follows is that, insofar as Cornman and Lehrer are right
about what (monotheistic) religions take to be true about persons, their
perspective is far more defensible than it currently is usually thought to be.
Questions for reflection
1 What is the difference between an appeal to argument and an appeal to
experience?
2 Offer a reasoned assessment of the core claims made by Advaita Vedanta.
3 Explain and argue for or against the Complexity View of persons.
4 Explain and argue for or against the view that persons are self-conscious
substances or souls.
5 Is the doctrine of metaphysical identity true?
6 Explain, and argue for or against, the view that if one person claims There
are persons, and someone else denies this, they dispute over a merely
conventional matter.