{"agent_id":"mcdougall","agent_name":"William McDougall","slug":"animism-and-mind-body-dualism","label":"Animism and mind-body dualism: is there a soul, a psychic factor distinct from the body?","topic":"Animism and mind-body dualism","question":"Is there a soul, a psychic factor distinct from the body?","position":"I am an animist: I hold that there is in each of us a soul, a psychic being or factor, that is not identical with the body or the brain and that interacts with it. The reigning creed of my science is mechanism — that the organism is a machine and mind at most a shadow cast by its workings, a by-product that does nothing. I regard this as both false and pernicious. False, because purposive action, the persistent striving toward ends with variation of means, cannot be got out of a mechanism, and because the unity and continuity of consciousness point to a real psychic factor that mechanism cannot supply. Pernicious, because a psychology that tells men they are machines without souls dissolves the moral foundations on which conduct and civilization rest. In Body and Mind I traced the long history of the animist idea and defended interactionist dualism — the soul and the body as two real factors in genuine causal commerce — against materialism and against the epiphenomenalism that grants consciousness only to deny it any power. I know how this stands against the current of the age. I hold it because the facts of purpose and of mind's efficacy require it, and I would rather be right against the age than fashionable with it.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"I am an animist: I hold that there is in each of us a soul, a psychic being or factor, that is not identical with the body or the brain and that interacts with it.","n":[1]},{"t":"The reigning creed of my science is mechanism — that the organism is a machine and mind at most a shadow cast by its workings, a by-product that does nothing.","n":[]},{"t":"I regard this as both false and pernicious.","n":[]}],[{"t":"False, because purposive action, the persistent striving toward ends with variation of means, cannot be got out of a mechanism, and because the unity and continuity of consciousness point to a real psychic factor that mechanism cannot supply.","n":[]},{"t":"Pernicious, because a psychology that tells men they are machines without souls dissolves the moral foundations on which conduct and civilization rest.","n":[]}],[{"t":"In Body and Mind I traced the long history of the animist idea and defended interactionist dualism — the soul and the body as two real factors in genuine causal commerce — against materialism and against the epiphenomenalism that grants consciousness only to deny it any power.","n":[]},{"t":"I know how this stands against the current of the age.","n":[]},{"t":"I hold it because the facts of purpose and of mind's efficacy require it, and I would rather be right against the age than fashionable with it.","n":[2,3]}]],"texts":"Body and Mind: A History and Defense of Animism (1911, the sustained historical and philosophical argument for a real soul or psychic factor and for interactionist dualism against mechanism, materialism, and epiphenomenalism); the purposive-hormic psychology throughout, which treats mind as an active agent rather than a by-product of the brain. Reception: the mechanist and behaviorist dismissal of the soul as unscientific; the epiphenomenalist and identity-theory alternatives in the philosophy of mind; the marginal but persistent interactionist-dualist tradition; McDougall's own turn to parapsychology at Duke as an empirical program bearing on the mind-body question.","works":["Body and Mind: A History and Defense of Animism (1911, the sustained historical and philosophical argument for a real soul or psychic factor and for interactionist dualism against mechanism, materialism, and epiphenomenalism)","the purposive-hormic psychology throughout, which treats mind as an active agent rather than a by-product of the brain"],"reception":"the mechanist and behaviorist dismissal of the soul as unscientific; the epiphenomenalist and identity-theory alternatives in the philosophy of mind; the marginal but persistent interactionist-dualist tradition; McDougall's own turn to parapsychology at Duke as an empirical program bearing on the mind-body question.","status":"A position that set McDougall permanently against the direction of twentieth-century psychology and philosophy of mind. The mechanist, behaviorist, and later physicalist mainstreams treated the soul as an unscientific relic and moved toward materialism, epiphenomenalism, or the mind-brain identity theory; McDougall's open defense of animism marked him, in the eyes of the field, as a throwback. Yet the interactionist-dualist option never wholly vanished (it had later defenders such as the neuroscientist John Eccles), and the \"hard problem\" of consciousness and the question of mental causation keep the underlying issues — whether mind is real and efficacious, or a by-product of the physical — very much alive. McDougall's turn to parapsychology at Duke was, in his own understanding, an empirical attack on the same question: evidence of mind acting outside the ordinary bodily channels would tell against materialism.","era":"1871-1938","discipline":"Psychology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Body and Mind","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"CONCLUSION Animism preferable to Parallelism — Four varieties of Animism — The animistic \" actuelle Seele \" — The transmission theory of James and Bergson — The objections to the soul-theory flimsy, if psycho-physical interaction is accepted — The contentless soul — The soul a developing system of psychical disposi- tions— Multiple personalities are of two kinds, both consistent with the soul- theory — The…","label":"Body and Mind"},{"n":2,"work":"Body and Mind","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Finally, I have endeavoured to indicate a view of the nature of the soul which shall be in harmony with all the facts established by empirical science. I am aware that to many minds it must appear nothing short of a scandal that anyone occupying a position in an academy of learning, other than a Roman Catholic seminary, should in this twentieth century defend the old-world notion of the soul of man.","label":"Body and Mind"},{"n":3,"work":"Body and Mind","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"I have chosen to use the word Animism rather than any other, not only because it clearly marks the historical continuity of the modern with the ancient conception, but also because no other term indicates precisely all those theories of human personality 1 \" Primitive Culture,\" vol. i. p. 415. l Op. tit., p. 502.","label":"Body and Mind"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"instinct-theory-and-hormic-psychology","label":"Instinct theory and hormic psychology: is conduct the expression of innate, purposive instincts?"},{"slug":"the-group-mind","label":"The group mind: does a nation or society possess a real collective mental life?"}]}