Dualism And Reality

Determining what is real will be answered in this essay on the basis of examining it from a materialistic, idealistic, and dualistic view of reality. In Brooke Noel Moore and Kenneth Bruder’s book Philosophy: The Power of Ideas (2014) they define the idea of dualist reality as what exists is either physical or nonphysical “spiritual” manifestations. Additionally, they also provide the idea materialistic reality is known as physicalism, a view in which all is physical, even mental “spiritual” things are manifestations of physical reality. Idealistic reality or idealism is defined as a view that mental “spiritual” things exist and they are manifestations of the mind and thought (Moore & Bruder , p. 940). Given the three common concepts, each

In analyzing if there is life after death, Descartes ideas on mind and matter urged the idea was independent upon the interaction of the two (p. 99). Life after death can be perceived both independent of physicalism and spiritualism and dependant on the reaction of both if they interact (ibid). The idea of life after death can exist but one would never know until they die, which is why this idea is hard to prove wrong in reality. So Decartes ideal of dualism supported that life after death could only be certain if one could recount it in their experience of death. It could only be discovered if one was dead and was able to recount that life still existed. However, because death is death and one is unable to come back to life, dualism helps exaplain that life could exist after death because all we can possibly do is doubt it’s certainity. Now in hopes of using Cartesian dualism to explain if a immaterial god exist, Decartes had certain knowledge that God existed, but not sure if it was due to a attribute of materialism or idealism (ibid). Decartes instead explained God would not not decieve the thinking mind with perceptions of a extreme world where objects were outside the mind if it did not exist (ibid). On that same thought Decartes proved that dualism could explain God’s existance. Each person can determine the existence of God on the

110). Berkeley was an idealist who believed in the existence of objects outside the mind, however the objects led to open skepticism about their existence (ibid). Skepticism about existence of sensible object would lead to the skepticism of God (p. 114). His argument was surrounded by a deep belief in an immaterial God. For those who don’t follow a faith in which a God exist, Berkeley’s idea of idealism does not have precedence and is not the best in helping identify what is