8.6 Christopher Hughes – The Soul: Some Preliminary Considerations

Descartes and various contemporary philosophers (such as Richard Swinburne) have offered modal arguments in favor of the existence of (human) souls. I set out one such argument, and explain why I think it cannot, as is sometimes thought, be dismissed simply by distinguishing conceivablity from possibility, and pointing out that (for reasons brought out by Kripke) the former is no guarantee of the latter. Nevertheless, I try to show, the argument is unsuccessful, because, even if some conceivable states of affairs provide us with a defeasible reason to think that human beings have souls, other conceivable states of affairsgive us an “undermining defeater” for that reason. I conclude with some speculations about why traditional arguments for human souls are so unsuccessful,even though the view that human beings have souls or something rather like souls (I argue) has considerably more intuitive appeal than is sometimes recognized.