Analysis Of Swinburne's 'The Prince And The Cobbler'

1009 Words3 Pages

Classical Dualism²
(SWINBURNE’S VIEW) For Swinburne’s argument dualism is defined as the view that there are just two mutually irreducible substances that are either material or mental. Swinburne’s Argument follows as it is logically possible for a person to continue to exist without their body, but with that it can be ambiguous and the interpretation can be considered to be qualitative identity with his first premise. His second premise follows as if one’s mind is an immaterial substance, also known as the soul, and is continuing to exist without someone’s body as a possibility then one can continues to exist if their mind continues to exist. This can easily be related to Locke’s “The Prince and the Cobbler” story outline where the soul of …show more content…

Through this exchange is that the prince still considers himself the prince, even though he finds himself in a new body, the Cobbler. Swinburne’s third premise is that if someone does not have an immaterial mind, then they will continuing to exist without their body is not a possibility. With the second and third premises in mind it is possible to conclude that someone must have an immaterial mind it must live with a body. Swinburne’s argument goes with part of the diachronic personal identity for someone’s soul to exist in there only body would be numerical identity, while for someone to exist out of there body would fall under the qualitative identity. His argument brings up the possibility “that souls can not be divided” through classical dualism (NITP 557). In Swinburne argument, he views the soul has the essential part of a human and that the soul …show more content…

The soul is linked to a body and through our bodies it can hold our apparent memories of the past that can give us evidence of our identity over time with diachronic personal identity theory. We typically identify people by things like their physical appearance and the sound of their voice, but it is hard to personally identify someone in terms of physical appearance and sameness of voice. Therefore, it can be explained in terms of our memories and sameness of our brains. On the psychological theory, which explains personal identity in terms of apparent memory, but to explain why my apparent memories justify me in believing that the same immaterial soul has been attached to my body for the duration of my life. Therefore, Swinburne’s counter argument is based on memory and perception based on the body. With memory playing into an effect, the certain religions that specify that the soul will live on into reincarnation is a slim chance and that know could know for sure if it is absolutely

Show More
Related

  • Smullyan Dualism

    2480 Words  | 5 Pages

    First, when considering dualism, is it conceivable to have a physical drug that can kill something that has no physical attributes? Is it possible to have to have a physical drug that can kill something separate from the body? It seems such a drug would be impossible in principle regardless if you’re a dualist. Perhaps not as much to someone who believes that the mind is wholly separate from the body (still seems a little absurd) but it is important to note that dualism does not require that the mind and body be independent as the story suggests but just merely separate. If dualism truly entailed that a body without a mind could operate exactly as though it had a mind there is definitely something a little wrong with it however it

    Read More

  • Mind and Soul

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    Given his position, Swinburne’s idea on the role of the mind and the soul, as well as the mortality of the soul are what I will be exploring.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Thomas Beller's 'The Ashen Guy'

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine walking up on the scene of that fateful day of 9/11 knowing absolutely nothing apart from the talk around you, seeing the black smoke accumulating around the World Trade Centers, hearing the blare of sirens as the police cars accelerate by. Thomas Beller knew what all those things felt like. He was a simple pedestrian riding his bike going about his everyday life when he saw the black smoke, heard the sirens, and felt the whip of the police cars speeding by. Beller had no clue what was going on when he approached the scene, but in his personal narrative “The Ashen Guy” he explains his recollection of what he experienced on that historical day. Beller uses tones such as chaotic, nervous, confused, and worry to illustrate a picture of what it was like for him to approach the World Trade Center.

    Read More

  • Essay On Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures Of Prince Achmed

    2027 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Stories Behind Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed The word “animation” defines as the technique of photographic successive drawings to create an illusion of movement, bringing a sense of life and vigor. Animation is usually associated with a sequence of drawings, bringing fluidity and character to a sketch. The same is said to miniature models, by the use of stop-motion; but what about cutouts?

    Read More

  • Comparing Dualism And Jackson's Knowledge Argument

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    The philosophical theory of dualism holds that mind and body are two separate entities. While dualism presupposes that the two ‘substances’ may interact, it contrasts physicalism by refusing to denote correlation between body and mind as proof of identity. Comparing the two theories, dualism’s invulnerable proof of the existence of qualia manages to evade arguments from physicalism. While a common argument against qualia—non-physical properties defined in Jackson’s Knowledge Argument—targets the unsound nature of epiphenomenalism, this claim is not fatal to the theory of dualism as it contains claims of causation and fails to stand resolute to the conceivability of philosophical zombies. This essay argues that epiphenomenalism, while often designated as a weakness when present in an argument, can remain in valid arguments from qualia.

    Read More

  • The Mind as a Function of the Body by Richard Taylor

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    Richard Taylor explained why the body and the mind are one, and why they are not two separate substances. In the article “The Mind as a Function of the Body”, Taylor divides his article in a number of sections and explains clearly why dualism, or the theory that the mind and the body are separate is not conceivable. In one of these sections it is explained in detail the origin of why some philosophers and people believe in dualist metaphysics. As stated by Taylor “when we form an idea of a body or a physical object, what is most likely to come to mind is not some person or animal but something much simpler, such as a stone or a marble”(133). The human has the tendency to believe a physical object as simple, and not containing anything complex. A problem with believing this is that unlike a stone or a marble a human (or an animal) has a brain and the body is composed of living cells (excluding dead skin cells, hair, and nails which are dead cells). The f...

    Read More

  • The Argument for Reincarnation in Hinduism

    1403 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ers guide their subjects to having memories of past life. There will always be those that will deny the evidence that is shown to their face, it is up to each individual to accept or reject the evidence provided. Based on the research provided through Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist, and the arguments presented, reincarnation cannot fully be rejected.

    Read More

  • The Kidnapped Prince Sparknotes

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main issues of the African people in the book “The Kidnapped Prince” were kidnappers and slave traders. An example of this is in the beginning of the book. While the adults of Equiano’s (main character) village are working in the fields, three kidnappers hopped the wall surrounding his peoples village. They kidnapped Equiano and his sister while they were playing. They are forced to travel with their captors and sold into slavery. Eventually Equiano is separated from his sister, as they both go to different “masters”. And although they do see each other at some point later in the book that would be their last meeting and they never see each other again.

    Read More

  • The Argument of Dualism

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    . There are two kinds of dualism. One is Substance dualism which holds that the mind or soul is a separate, non-physical entity, but there is also property dualism, according to which there is no soul distinct from the body, but only one thing, the person, that has two irreducibly different types of properties, mental and physical. Substance dualism leaves room for the possibility that the soul might be able to exist apart from the body, either before birth or after death; property dualism does not. A substance dualism is something with "an independent existence". It can exist on its own. This holds that each distinct non-physical entity mind composed a different kind of substance to material objects. Substance dualist believed only spiritual substances can have mental properties. It is “soul” along with certain memory and psychological continuities that constitutes the survival of the person. Physical properties of property dualism are properties like having a certain weight, conducting electricity and mental properties are properties like believing that 1+1=2, being in love, feeling pain, and etc. Property dualism allows for the compatibility of mental and physical causation, since the cause of an action might under one aspect is describable as a physical event in the brain and under another aspect as a desire, emotion, or thought; substance dualism usually requires causal interaction between the soul and the body. Dualistic theories at least acknowledge the serious difficulty of locating consciousness in a modern scientific conception of the physical world, but they really give metaphysical expression to the problem rather than solving it.

    Read More

  • Comparing Dual-Self Characters in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Study in Scarlet and Sign of Four

    1407 Words  | 3 Pages

    It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both [. . .] If each, I told myself, could be but housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.

    Read More

  • Sensations And The Brain Essay

    1919 Words  | 4 Pages

    This paper aims to endorse physicalism over dualism by means of Smart’s concept of identity theory. Smart’s article Sensations and the Brain provides a strong argument for identity theory and accounts for many of it primary objections. Here I plan to first discuss the main arguments for physicalism over dualism, then more specific arguments for identity theory, and finish with further criticisms of identity theory.

    Read More

  • Difference Between Functionalism And Dualism

    1533 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dualism is the idea that the mind is a separate entity that has no connection to the physical body.

    Read More

  • Four Arguments For The World Of Life In Plato's Phaedo

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    The next argument is called “the affinity” it simply reiterates that the world of the forms is superior to the world of senses. This argument is intended to establish only the probability of the soul’s continued existence after the death of the body. The soul is more like the world of forms. The body is the mortal part of us, the part that passes away. Which makes him believe the soul is divine. If the soul is freed from the pleasures of the body, it’s most likely to participate in the world of forms.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Little Prince

    3487 Words  | 7 Pages

    The tone of The Little Prince is often lonely and fragile-sounding, much like the little prince himself, when he ventures into the world of adults in an attempt to understand them. The writer emphasizes, throughout the story, that loneliness is what isolates the adults rather than children because they are unable to see things with their minds, hearts, and imagination. Both the protagonist (the little prince) and secondary protagonist (the narrator) lead lonely lives because of this isolation due to the differences between the minds of children and adults.      "So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to," writes the narrator, before his plane crashes in the middle of the Sahara. He explains this in the first few chapters - living his life alone - because this 'world of grownups' does not understand him and wishes for him to talk of their idea of 'sensible' and 'practical' things. This made him very lonely, not so much in a physical sense, but so that he could never really find anyone to relate to. The narrator explains that after flat responses to his imaginative observations to things, "'Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and gold, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.'" In one of my magazines is an article called, "Popularity Truths & Lies," where popular girls talk about their social status. In large, red print, it says, "Lie: Popular girls are never left out or lonely." The girls then go on to explain how sometimes, they feel as if they are making so many friends only because of their popularity. They say that it's great to be popular, but difficult to find someone that really wants to befriend them for true qualities rather than social status. The situations between the narrator of The Little Prince and these popular students is that it seems that they would never be isolated (popular students from their admiring peers and the supposedly sensible-minded narrator from the adult world) - physically, at least - but inside the kind of friend they are really longing for is someone to understand and honestly talk to in order to end the abstract barriers between these worlds of people.

    Read More

  • A.I. Film Analysis

    1587 Words  | 4 Pages

    But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human life, such as human dignity and personal identity. The mind-body problem entails two theories, dualism and physicalism. Dualism contends that distinct mental and physical realms exist, and they both must be taken into account. Its counterpart (weak) physicalism views the human as being completely bodily and physical, encompassing no non-physical, or spiritual, substances.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Swinburne's 'The Prince And The Cobbler'

Open Document