Difference Between Reductive Materialism And Dualism

Philosophy has evolved quite a bit since its emergence in ancient Greece; one of the biggest developments has been conscious and what really explains our minds. It’s commonly argued that our minds and our ability for deep thought is what truly separates us from everything around us, so what cause is this? What makes us different? There have been theories developed on this idea throughout history from Descartes’s dualism to the common modern day theories of materialism, but even to this day there is the ongoing debate of which theory is right. Searle has a unique view called non-reductive materialism which challenges the premise of all other theories. To start off Searle points out the most commonly discussed issue of dualism, one even Descartes
Both follow the same idea that everything is physical; the mind must be a physical component of the body to communicate with body as it does. Eliminative materialism believes that idea of consciousness will eventually be as obsolete as magic is today; once we discover the biological reasons for thought, pain, etc. we will stop needing the idea of consciousness. Reductive materialism claims that conscious is real, but is reducible to physical components, basically all of consciousness has a biological purpose. The issue that arises with eliminative materialism is that we do have thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Every human being can attest to that, but if all we are is machines than there isn’t an explanation for our cognition; there’s a reason robots aren’t conscious. Searle finds a similar issue with reductive materialism, but the more specific problem is that humans do too many illogical things for every choice to be functional. He also claims that psychology isn’t reducible; it’s its own whole part of the human experience that can’t be turned into a series of biological
Essentially he believes that we have to accept the idea that physical things, like the human body, can have mental properties, like consciousness. He understands that this violates the idea that physical things must have physical properties and mental things, mental properties. Searle sees this as an outdated way of thinking and really just a grammatical concept more than an actual philosophical law. According to Searle, these strictly defined categories were developed from Cartesian theory, which would mean outside of dualism they are not laws we must follow in thought. Overall I think Searle’s ideas have very serious potential and they do follow the idea that if the answer isn’t possible, then there must be something wrong with the premise. If we know the mind and the body are one, psychology exists, and it can’t be reduced, we have to find another solution. Non-reductive materialism seems to be the most possible explanation. It does a fantastic job of combining psychology and biology in a way I don’t think the other theories have. Though I see a lot of merit in non-reductive materialism, I don’t particularly agree with any of the major theories of consciousness discussed. I’m not exactly sure what my viewpoint would fall under, but it’s definitely more idealism than materialism. It doesn’t actually matter what is physical in reality, because reality is entirely a perception. Everything in our world is our own perception.