Descartes,Malebranche and Leibniz: conceptions of substance in arguments for the immateriality of the soul |
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Authors: | Marleen Rozemond |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canadamarleen.rozemond@utoronto.ca |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACTThe most prominent early modern argument against materialism is to be found in Descartes. Previously I had argued that this argument relies crucially on a robust conception of substance, according to which it has a single principal attribute of which all its other intrinsic qualities are modes. In the present paper I return to this claim. In Section 2, I address a question that is often raised about that conception of substance: its commitment to the idea that a substance has a single such principal attribute. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra and Daniel Garber have argued that this claim relies on Descartes's identification of substance with attribute. But I argue that it relies on his view that a substance has a single, unitary nature. In Section 3, I examine the role of this conception of substance in arguments found in Malebranche and Leibniz and compare these arguments with Descartes's. |
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Keywords: | Dualism mind materialism substance mode |
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