Substance dualism

Substance dualism is the view that minds and bodies are distinct kinds of substance. It holds that mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties.

Mind–body problem: The problem of explaining how mental phenomena relate to bodies and physical processes. Substance dualism is one influential answer to this broader problem.
Mind–body interaction: The proposed causal influence between mental events and bodily events. Substance dualism must account for how an immaterial mind moves a physical body.
René Descartes: A seventeenth-century French philosopher and mathematician who developed a systematic philosophy of mind and matter. His distinction between thinking mind and extended body became the canonical modern formulation.
Mind–body identity theory: The view that mental states are identical to states of the brain. It rejects the claim that mental states belong to a distinct mental substance.
Problem of mental causation: The problem of explaining how mental events cause physical actions within a causally complete physical world. It presses dualists to explain mental influence without disrupting physical causal accounts.
Substance: A fundamental entity that exists in its own right and bears properties. The view depends on treating mind and matter as fundamentally different entities.
Causal interactionism: The view that mental and physical substances causally affect one another. This is the interactionist form of dualism, allowing thoughts to cause bodily actions.
Cartesian dualism: Descartes’s account of mind and body as distinct substances with different essential attributes. It is the best-known historical version of substance dualism.
Functionalism: The theory that mental states are defined by their causal roles rather than their material composition. It explains mentality through organization and function, without requiring an immaterial substance.
Causal closure of the physical: The principle that physical events have sufficient physical causes. If physical causes are sufficient, a distinct mental cause may seem unnecessary or excluded.

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