Hylemorphic Dualism by David S. Oderberg: Emphasis on Personal Identity

Hylemorphic Dualism
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Hylemorphic Dualism
In the article, Hylemorphic Dualism David S. Oderberg defends dualism particularly on personal identity and the philosophy of mind. Hylemorphic dualism is the more traditional form of dualism which approaches the mind-body problem that Thomists and Aristotelians defend but only receives minimal attention. David in this article delivers his main argument to support his position as a hylemorphic dualist with more emphasis on personal identity. Hylemorphic (or hylomorphic) is the view that holds that the human soul is the substantial form of the living human body and that it is unique among the forms of material things in being subsistent, that is capable of surviving even beyond death.[Oderberg, David S. "Hylemorphic dualism." Social Philosophy and Policy 22, no. 2 (2005): 70-99.] [Cooney, Brian. "A hylomorphic theory of mind." (1991).]
The hylemorphic dualist acceptance of the immaterial element in human nature provides more flexibility in understanding the human persons’ persistence. The concept of the form should be the center of discussion just like materialism, that a substance is composed of form and matter. Once a soul is united to a body, it is the form of that body for all time, even after death. The identity after death depends on it having informed certain matter that is, the identity of the person that is reduced to it. The soul continues to have a retrospective character, one that reflects on the choices it made when it actualized that matter and therefore, the person’s actions were once the chief component. The soul remains to be the indelible stamp of personhood and tends to direct the full flowering of its capacities in the matter due to its nature as an actualizing principle of the matter.
David presented his main argument by consolidating different arguments. In the first argument, he states that the recent debate has been negatively affected by an overemphasis on the problem of consciousness and that emphasis should rather be on form. He attributes this to the fact that consciousness is a topic that is yet to fully be understood despite the onslaught of physicalism, naturalism, and materialism. According to David, the problem of personal identity is mainly a problem of consciousness, and that consciousness does not constitute personhood but rather presupposes and reveals it. The problem of personal identity is about psychology in general and concerns the particular mental operation of the human being.[Oderberg, David S. "Hylemorphic dualism." Social Philosophy an...