Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
Summary
G. E. Moore is reported to have “insisted that he was quite distinct from his body, and one day said that his hand was closer to him than his foot was.” This might appear to be a tragicomic plight, and perhaps more like the report of a drug tripper as opposed to a twentieth century, “commonsense” philosopher. I am sympathetic with his stance, however, insofar as I think persons are nonphysical and that it is possible to experience remoteness from parts of one's body and even parts of oneself. In the first three chapters above I defended the thesis that persons are nonphysical, and, in Chapter 6, the claim that a person can be remote from who she is depending upon self-understanding, memory, attentiveness, and so on. Integrative dualism is also well placed to recognize that one can indeed feel remote from one's bodily parts when, say, one's foot is paralyzed and there is no proprioception, feeling, or motor control. Having recognized the ways in which we can be subject to fragmentation, however, I have sought to underscore the integrated, holist relation between persons and bodies. A central aim of the second, fourth, and sixth chapters was to overcome the charge that dualism by its very nature must be conceptually crippling.
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- Information
- Consciousness and the Mind of God , pp. 339 - 341Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994