Swinburne’s Arguments on the Consistency of Immaterial Person: A Critical Examination

Abstract

Swinburne needs to present a coherent picture of the immaterial person because it is the foundation for accepting truths in his philosophy, such as God, angels, and the soul. He believes that the existence of an immaterial person is possible and that accepting such a being is reasonable, based on the same thought experiment as Avicenna's "floating man". In contrast to his opponents, he believes that an immaterial person can have attributes like hope and desire. However, these attributes may remain hidden in the immaterial person or manifest through the body. According to him, those theories that deny the existence of an immaterial person based on the inability to distinguish them from one another are hasty and that using memory and brain as the criterion for personal identity is false. He claims that the memory and the brain can be regarded as epistemological criteria for personal identity, but they cannot be considered metaphysical due to many issues. Swinburne's view encounters many problems, including the conflict between its various principles, the inconceivability of a bodiless human, and the need for a brain for any thought experiment. This article analyzes the foundations of Swinburne's theory, summarizes his arguments on the coherence of the immaterial person, analyzes his critical view of opposing theories, and comes to the end with some critiques of his theory.

Keywords

• immaterial person
• personal identity
• floating man
• thought experiment
• swinburne