Dualism vs monism
...body. He also had the opinion that your soul may go on living once your physical self had died. (B.Russell. 1946). Descartes is a very famous supporter of dualism as he believes that a human consists of both a spirit and a physical body. Those who don’t agree with the dualist view try to blame Descartes for the dualist theory when in actual fact the theory can be traced further back than his philosophizing years, all Descartes did was try to find convincing proof to support the ancient theory which he supported (E.Craig 2002). The dualist theory has always had the problem of competing with science, especially when trying to answer the question what part does the mind actually play in the dualist’s theory? Many people agree that what we think, feel and our awareness of our environment all have affects on our behaviour. For example if I think that a football match starts in twenty minutes, I want to watch it, and see a signpost saying ‘football stadium’, I will go in the direction I believe the signpost is pointing. This example implies my body goes somewhere it wouldn’t otherwise have gone. The problem with this suggestion is that science proposes that physical experiences are caused by other physical events which have previously happened (E.Craig 2002). Concerning the question of what part does the mind play in the dualist theory? Descartes offers the suggestion that your senses trick you all the time and are n o more reliable than dreams or hallucinations. Descartes states that if you doubt your senses you can begin to doubt whether or not your thinking, doubt then cancels itself out because doubting something you have to be thinking about it. Therefore if you can begin to doubt things even the existence of your own body your mind must be something separate from the body, and capable of surviving without it (E.Craig 2002). The second theory featuring in this essay is the idealist theory or idealism. The idealist theory supports the view that all objects in nature and physical experiences are representations of the mind. The idealist theory relies upon the mind only. The philosophers George Berkeley and Hegel are both idealists, but support different forms of idealism. The subjective idealism of George Berkeley argues that the physical self is only in an individuals mind and does not exist separately from ones spirit or mind...