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Property Dualism

This form of dualism maintains that while there is just one substance in the universe - matter and energy - there are distinct properties that are described as physical and mental. In the supervenience view of non-reductive physicalism mental properties supervene upon physical neurobiological processes in the brain. To supervene means that the higher level mental property depends upon the neurobiological process in order to exist, it is irreducible to the neurobiological process and remains ontologically distinct even though it has no direct causal effect on those physical processes.

An epiphenomenalist view in non-reductive physicalism places mental properties as byproducts of the purely physical neurobiological processes of the brain. Epiphenomenalism does accept the notion of mental causation, mental properties being properties of the physical process and thus capable of causing mental states and actions derived from mental states. An Emergentist view postulates that mental properties emerge from neurobiological processes of the brain, representing a higher order property that may also have causal power.

Property dualism thus represents a materialist philosophical view that is not bound by the apparent contradictions of strict reductionism in its recognition of mental properties as of a higher order than purely physical properties, but which does not require mental properties to represent some independently existing immaterial substance.

Web Resources On Property Dualism

property dualism
Property Dualism (Wikipedia)
Why the Property Dualism Argument Won't Go Away

Book Resources On Property Dualism

Dualism and Monism, and other Essays by John Veitch
Descartes's Dualism by Marleen Rozemond

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