How to be a dualist
How to be a dualist David Curtis UCL Genetics Institute, University College London Centre for Psychiatry, Queen Mary University of London d.curtis@ucl.ac.uk Is dualism really that bad? One of my reasons for writing this is that people seem to think it’s not OK to be a dualist. There’s this notion that dualism is somehow a thoroughly disreputable position. People go “Ah but that’s dualist” or say “Cartesian dualism” as a euphemism for “nonsense”. What I’m going to claim here is that dualism is in fact intellectually quite respectable and defensible, as long as you do it right. Maybe you still won’t tell other people that you’re a dualist but at least you might feel a bit better about yourself. Where to draw the line Saying “mind-body dualism” is risky because the word “mind” is often used to refer to mental activities such as thinking, judging and remembering. It’s perfectly obvious that these are activities of the brain and if we start trying to split them off from