Abstract
You and I are conscious. But You-and-I, a pair of subjects, cannot be conscious. Why? Because subjects of consciousness cannot have parts but are mereologically simple. Although most contemporary philosophers do not take the thesis that we are simple seriously, David Barnett has proffered an argument in its defense that has faced numerous objections but is yet to be defeated, or so I will argue. In responding to these objections, I expand and develop important ontological and mereological theses that strengthen Barnett’s argument and others of its kind. I also argue that a significant body of empirical work supports Barnett’s argument against a recent objection. Lastly, I show how, although not made explicit by Barnett, his argument is plausibly a defense of the immaterial self or a bodily soul.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Change and Location: A New and Old Case against Functionality
- The Dualist Metaphysics of the Incarnation and the Too Many Thinkers Problem
- The Transcendent and Causal Dimensions of Aquinas’s Action Theory: Insights from Metaphysics
- Aspectual Compresence
- Why Trope Metaphysics is Better than the Theory of Universals?
- Free Will: Evidence for the Existence of Soul
- The Same F 1 but a Different F 2 – with Absolute Identity
- The Subtraction Argument in an Infinite World
- Making Sense of Simultaneity: A Reply to Wahlberg
- Events and Facts in the Image of Modes
- Why There is No Us in Consciousness: You Are Simple, a Bodily Soul
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Change and Location: A New and Old Case against Functionality
- The Dualist Metaphysics of the Incarnation and the Too Many Thinkers Problem
- The Transcendent and Causal Dimensions of Aquinas’s Action Theory: Insights from Metaphysics
- Aspectual Compresence
- Why Trope Metaphysics is Better than the Theory of Universals?
- Free Will: Evidence for the Existence of Soul
- The Same F 1 but a Different F 2 – with Absolute Identity
- The Subtraction Argument in an Infinite World
- Making Sense of Simultaneity: A Reply to Wahlberg
- Events and Facts in the Image of Modes
- Why There is No Us in Consciousness: You Are Simple, a Bodily Soul