The Ghost of the Machine: An analysis of the conceptual pressure toward dualism in Descartes and its modern manifestations

Abstract

This thesis explores the conceptual shift between the pre-Cartesian Aristotelian-Scholastic metaphysical synthesis and the dualistic synthesis of Descartes, and the effect of this change on the 'hard problem' of consciousness in contemporary philosophy of mind. Part 1 tracks the conceptual pressures toward dualism generated by pre-Cartesian developments and Descartes’ own mechanistic and physico-mathematical sympathies. The theoretical costs and benefits of abandoning the Aristotelian-Scholastic synthesis are identified. Part 2 covers in detail the consequences of dualism for Descartes’ view of nature, and argues that the very terms on which he proposes dualism gives rise to a fatal interaction problem. In Part 3, important parallels are explored between Descartes’ drive toward dualism and the contemporary discourse around David Chalmers' 'Structure-and-Dynamics Argument for Dualism,' which modernises conceptual pressures similar to those which led Descartes to dualism and therefore generates similar theoretical problems for the contemporary naturalistic project. Drawing upon the analysis of what was lost in the adoption of Cartesianism, I make some thematic suggestions as to what a satisfying relief of the conceptual pressure generated by the ‘Structure-and-dynamics’ concept of the physical might look like.