Home » Library » Authors » Yujin Nagasawa

Yujin Nagasawa

Yujin Nagasawa

[ Author Bio (Off Site PDF)]

[ Purchase Books by this Author ]

Review of The Evolution of the Soul (2005)

In The Evolution of the Soul Richard Swinburne makes a courageous attempt to defend (Cartesian) substance dualism--the thesis that the mind (or soul) is distinct from the body, yet interacts with it. Nagasawa's review critically analyzes two of Swinburne's arguments: (i) that one's conscious existence entails the existence of one's soul; and (ii) that a dualist has no obligation to explain how interaction is possible between ontologically distinct minds and bodies. At the very least, Nagasawa concludes, Swinburne has an obligation to explain why such interaction is inexplicable--and without invoking the existence of God.


Yujin Nagasawa is Research Fellow at the Australian National University and Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta.

See also Nagasawa's author page in the Secular Web Library.


Published on the Secular Web


Modern Library

Review of The Evolution of the Soul

In The Evolution of the Soul Richard Swinburne makes a courageous attempt to defend (Cartesian) substance dualism—the thesis that the mind (or soul) is distinct from the body, yet interacts with it. Nagasawa's review critically analyzes two of Swinburne's arguments: (i) that one's conscious existence entails the existence of one's soul; and (ii) that a dualist has no obligation to explain how interaction is possible between ontologically distinct minds and bodies. At the very least, Nagasawa concludes, Swinburne has an obligation to explain why such interaction is inexplicable—and without invoking the existence of God.