Murder in Boston by Ken Englade

Murder in Boston by Ken Englade

The traditional account of mind/body union attributed to Descartes supposes that the immaterial, thinking mind and the material, non-thinking body interact by means of efficient causation - that the mind causes events in the body, e.g. the voluntary raising of an arm, and vice versa, e.g. the visual sensation of a tree. But this gives rise to a notorious philosophical problem: how can this causal interaction occur between the spiritual mind and the physical body since they have absolutely nothing in common and cannot come into contact with one another?Justin Skirry's book shows how Descartes in fact avoids this enormous problem. Skirry argues, through a critical re-examination of Cartesian metaphysics, that the union of mind and body is not, as most scholars have always maintained, constituted by efficient causal interaction for Descartes, because this would not result in one, complete human nature but in an aggregate of two numerically distinct natures. Descartes argues in the 6th Meditation and elsewhere that mind/body union is constituted by what the scholastics called a 'substantial union', i.e. the union that form (mind) has with matter (body). This substantial union produces a whole that is more than the sum of its parts; the capacity for modes of sensation and voluntary bodily movement are emergent properties of the whole, substantially united mind and body. Therefore, the 'Cartesian' problem of mind-body efficient causal interaction is avoided altogether, since efficient causal occurrences between mind and body play no role in explaining the existence of these modes.

KEN ENGLADE is an investigative reporter and bestselling author whose books include Beyond Reason, To Hatred Turned, Cellar of Horror, A Family Business, Deadly Lessons, Murder in Boston, and Blood Sister. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife Heidi.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780312923969
ISBN 10	0312923961
Title	Murder in Boston
Author	Ken Englade
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	St. Martin's Press
Year published	1990-04-15
Number of pages	268
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.