Substance Dualism: Are Mind and Body Separate Substances? (Metaphysics of Mind Episode 1)

An overview of Cartesian substance dualism and the arguments for and against the view that mental and physical are distinct substances. Substance dualism is the view that reality consists of two separate and distinct substances: physical stuff or res extensa (e.g. a table, your body, your brain) and mental stuff or res cogitans (i.e. your soul or mind). These substances are completely independent and so one can exist without the other. The arguments start with Descartes' indivisibility argument for substance dualism - that because physical things can be divided but the mind can't be divided, the mind can't be a physical thing. However, physicalism could potentially disagree that the mind can't be divided, or argue that just because something is indivisible that doesn't mean it's not physical. Next the video goes into Descartes' conceivability argument for substance dualism - that because he can conceive of mind and body existing separately, it must be (metaphysically) possible for mind to exist without body. But the masked man fallacy suggests that just because you can imagine mind without body, that may not necessarily prove that mind without body really is possible. Then the video also considers interaction issues facing substance dualism, including Princess Elisabeth's conceptual interaction problem (how can a non-physical mind move a physical body?) and the empirical interaction problem (if the mind is non-physical it would have to add energy into the body to move it, violating conservation of energy). These videos are based around the AQA A-level philosophy syllabus. 00:00 Intro 02:20 Explanation of (Cartesian) substance dualism 06:06 Descartes' indivisibility argument for substance dualism 11:27 Descartes' indivisibility argument for substance dualism: mental is divisible response 23:13 Descartes' indivisibility argument for substance dualism: some physical things are indivisible response 29:26 Descartes' conceivability argument for substance dualism 32:04 Descartes' conceivability argument for substance dualism: what is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible response (masked man fallacy) 38:47 Princess Elisabeth's conceptual interaction problem for substance dualism 46:47 The empirical interaction problem for substance dualism 51:29 Summary: Substance dualism 56:45 Outro and books References/further reading: My website (AQA notes): https://philosophyalevel.com/aqa-phil... My website (OCR notes): https://philosophyalevel.com/ocr-reli... My book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Level-... My psychology website for stuff about split-brain patients: https://psychologyalevel.com/aqa-psyc... Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes. Full text here: https://philosophyalevel.com/rene-des... Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Rene Descartes. Full text here: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/asse... The Passions of the Soul by Rene Descartes. Full text here: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/asse... Metaphysical possibility explanation (this is how the masked man fallacy response to the conceivability argument is supposed to work):    • What is Possible? #philosophy   Stanford's page on substance dualism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/du... #philosophy #alevelphilosophy #Descartes