Occam's Razor, atheism, theism and polytheism.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If you are not a substance dualist, then you are not a scholastic...

Descartes was the first substance dualist. Before that the concept did not exist.

[Jehanne]

If you are not a substance dualist, then you are not a scholastic...

Descartes was the first substance dualist. Before that the concept did not exist.

Plato?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Descartes was the first substance dualist. Before that the concept did not exist.

Plato?

Yes, Plato describes a 'soul' but not as a distinct mental substance. His idea was that a person imperfectly manifests the form of Man during his or her earthly existence. Soul was something more akin to participation in an Ideal than a ghostly extra presence inside the person. You could say that the idea of an alienable spirit does go back to the OT but it's still not a fully developed theological theory until much later. Then again that's just my amatuer opinion. You'll be taking a class soon and your instructor may have a different interpretation.

[Jehanne]

Plato?

Yes, Plato describes a 'soul' but not as a distinct mental substance. His idea was that a person imperfectly manifests the form of Man during his or her earthly existence. Soul was something more akin to participation in an Ideal than a ghostly extra presence inside the person. You could say that the idea of an alienable spirit does go back to the OT but it's still not a fully developed theological theory until much later. Then again that's just my amatuer opinion. You'll be taking a class soon and your instructor may have a different interpretation.

I'm turning 50 this fall, my friend, but I found this source:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

More to the point, do you believe that human consciousness survives the death and destruction of the human brain?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm turning 50 this fall, my friend, but I found this source:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
More to the point, do you believe that human consciousness survives the death and destruction of the human brain?

Did you notice how the article skipped over the Scholastic period? That seems to be quite common Don’t get me wrong, I think the Stanford articles are some of the best on the web. But when it comes to the contributions of the Schoolmen, the summaries tend to be incomplete, if not down-right misleading. But Scholasticism, which builds on Aristotle, remains a vibrant tradition found mostly in seminaries because of its obvious connection to the theologies that flow out of it. But Scholastism is not the only tradition that runs parallel to Anglo-American philosophy. Continental philosophy builds on existentialism. Since most of that is in French or German, my only contact with it comes from attending art history/theory lectures about semiotics. So while I enjoy participating on AF, nearly everyone else cling to the attitudes and concepts of just one tradition, the one most favorable to materialism. So I’m constantly bumping up against that, trying to show that competing approaches to philosophical problems in metaphysics have, I believe, been more insightful and closer to the truth. It is automatically assumed that the Scholastic demonstrations (not just about Divinity but Universals and Substantive Forms) have been refuted. Well, not really. One approach just veered off into a separate branch and along the way important distinctions got blurred and the tools necessary to properly evaluate those demonstrations were lost.

But I digress…

Your question is not a simple one. Following Aristotle, what makes a complete person is the union of the human form and matter disposed manifest it. If that union is dissolved then both in some sense remain but neither by itself is a complete person. My own opinion is that the intentionality of consciousness remains but it has no content. Whether this constitutes ‘survival’ is a matter of interpretation. Likewise the human form exists, but only impersonally as a universal, but has no matter capable of manifesting a particular person. In Christian theology, there is much debate about the nature of the afterlife and I am closely following current debates about eternal conscious torment and annihilationism. Either way, it is my opinion that the Christian doctrine of resurrection of the dead, suggests that the dead do not live again until their intentions and forms (present in the Lord, so to speak) are re-embodied in some new substance (the New Heaven and New Earth).