Editing Mind–body dualism (section)

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[[Property dualism]] and [[William Hasker]]'s "emergent dualism"<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Emergent Properties"]. Excerpt: "William Hasker (1999) goes one step further in arguing for the existence of the mind conceived as a non-composite substance which 'emerges' from the brain at a certain point in its development. He dubs his position 'emergent dualism,' and claims for it all the philosophical advantages of traditional, Cartesian substance dualism while being able to overcome a central difficulty, viz., explaining how individual brains and mental substances come to be linked in a persistent, 'monogamous' relationship. Here, Hasker, is using the term to express a view structurally like one (vitalism) that the British emergentists were anxious to disavow, thus proving that the term is capable of evoking all manner of ideas for metaphysicians."</ref> seek to avoid this problem. They assert that the mind is a property or substance that emerges from the appropriate arrangement of physical matter, and therefore could be affected by any rearrangement of matter.

Writing in the 13th century, St. [[Thomas Aquinas]] writes that "the body is necessary for the action of the intellect, not as {{as written|i|t's}} origin of action." Thus, if the body is dysfunctional, the intellect will not actualize as it intends to.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm|title=Summa Theologiae: Man who is composed of a spiritual and a corporeal substance: and in the first place, concerning what belongs to the essence of the soul}} Article 2, Reply to Objection 3.</ref> According to the philosopher [[C. Stephen Evans|Stephen Evans]]:

{{blockquote|We did not need [[neurophysiology]] to come to know that a person whose head is bashed in with a club quickly loses his or her ability to think or have any conscious processes. Why should we not think of neurophysiological findings as giving us detailed, precise knowledge of something that human beings have always known, or at least could have known, which is that the mind (at least in this mortal life) requires and depends on a functioning brain? We now know a lot more than we used to know about precisely ''how'' the mind depends on the body. However, ''that'' the mind depends on the body, at least prior to death, is surely not something discovered in the 20th century".<ref>[[C. Stephen Evans]], "Separable Souls: Dualism, Selfhood, and the Possibility of Life After Death." ''Christian Scholars Review'' 34 (2005): 333–34.</ref>}}