Nicholas Everitt

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Substance Dualism and Disembodied Existence (2000)

Richard Swinburne defends substance dualism--the idea that mind and body are two radically different things--throughout his various works, including The Coherence of Theism, Is There A God?, The Evolution of the Soul, and Personal Identity. Nicholas Everitt's critique focuses on the latter two books, as Swinburne appears to believe that the argument from the possibility of disembodied consciousness he develops there is his most persuasive argument. After much philosophical reflection, Everitt concludes that Swinburne's primary argument for dualism has no force because it simply assumes what it is trying to prove.

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Nicholas Everitt is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia (UK). He is the coauthor of Modern Epistemology (1995), as well as the author of many articles on epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion.