PERSONAL IDENTITY – Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr and jeffrey Paul

Abstract:

“Despite the fact that it continues to have followers, and that it can be said to have enjoyed something of a micro-revival in recent years, dualism either in the philosophy of mind
or in the theory of personal identity persists in being more the object of ridicule than of serious rational engagement. It is held by the vast majority of philosophers to be anything fro
(and not mutually exclusively) false, mysterious, and bizarre, to obscurantist, unintelligible, and/or dangerous to morals. Its adherents are assumed to be biased, scientifically ill-informed, motivated by prior theological dogma, cursed by metaphysical anachronism, and/or to have taken leave of their senses. Dualists who otherwise appear relatively sane in
their philosophical writings are often treated with a certain benign, quasi parental”