The paper deals with Martine Nida-Rümelin's argument in defense of emergent substance dualism developed in her recent papers. The author reconstructs and critically considers the central claims of the argument: 1. The emergence of new Individuals, 2. The emergence of Consciousness Properties, 3. Qualitatively New Properties, 4. Subject Causation, and 5. The causal Powers of Consciousness Properties. The author raises two conceptual objections against the argument developed by Nida-Ruümelin. The first objection is targets the first premise of the argument and is related to the conceptual ambiguity of the mechanism of formation of body experience, in particular, the argument does not explain whether the organism as a material system is identical to the body. The second objection concerns the fourth and fifth premises of the argument and is related to the principle of the subject causation. The author shows that Nida-Rümelin's assumption works requires a rejection of another important principle, namely the principle of the causal closeness of the physical. This deprives the argument of one of its most important advantages, namely its compatibility with contemporary naturalism. The author concludes that the argument in defense of emergent substance dualism proposed by Nida-Rümelin cannot be considered as a convincing one without additional improvements of claims 1, 4, and 5.

Translated title of the contributionOn an argument in defense of emergent substance dualism (an objection to Martine Nida-Rümelin)
Original languageRussian
Pages (from-to)150-161
Number of pages12
JournalFilosofskii Zhurnal
Volume13
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020

    Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy
  • History and Philosophy of Science

ID: 74137894