Substance dualism
The mind is an immaterial substance distinct from the body.
What it claims
Substance dualism takes thinking substance and extended substance to be different kinds of thing. Descartes's Sixth Meditation (1641) argues that clearly and distinctly conceiving oneself as thinking without a body supports their real distinction. The view rejects identifying mental states with brain states and makes room for bodily independent personal existence, without by itself proving survival after death.
Nearby positions
Goes together with
Key thinkers
René Descartes · Karl Popper · John Eccles · Richard Swinburne · John Foster