Soul Dualism Quotes & Sayings

Prayer that craves a particular commodity - anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

While physical states can be publicly known, mental states are only privately known. This characteristic of the mind is not shared with the brain; the properties of the brain and the mind are not identical. — J. Warner Wallace

Aristotelian hylomorphic anthropology of soul and body as form and matter of a single substance, as distinct from a Platonic or Cartesian two-substance dualism, or simple materialism or simple immaterialism or spiritualism. All three alternatives to Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism are logically problematic as well as not in accord with our experience. — Peter Kreeft

it seems to me that, on balance, soul/body dualism has been the enemy of compassion. For instance, the moral stigma that still surrounds disorders of mood and cognition seems largely the result of viewing the mind as distinct from the brain. When the pancreas fails to produce insulin, there is no shame in taking synthetic insulin to compensate for its lost function. — Sam Harris

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
- Albert Einstein, letter of February 5, 1921 — Albert Einstein

If dualism is true, then life after death is not only possible, but plausible. That's because our immaterial minds are distinct from our material bodies, and the mortal fate of our bodies in no way implies the death of our minds. Even more than this, the death of the body becomes a kind of emancipation for the mind, because during life our minds are inextricably bound to our bodies. Think of a vapor or gas that is sealed inside a bottle. Smash the bottle and you haven't smashed the vapor; you have released it. The fate of the vapor is not tied to the fate of the bottle as long as vapors and bottles are different kinds of stuff. Both Plato and Descartes advanced arguments along these lines for the immortality of the soul, — Anonymous

Integrity has a high psychological and philosophical value, for many people it is a highest value, it associate with health of soul. Dualism, contradiction, torments of hesitation - is something of illness, integrity is health, people strive for it instinctively. — Simon Soloveychik