What is it about?

‘The soul hypothesis’ (the belief that souls exist and humans have them) enjoys near unanimous support in the general population. Among philosophers and scientists however, belief in the soul is far less common. The purpose of this essay to explain why many philosophers and scientists reject the soul hypothesis and to consider what the non-existence of the soul would entail. As we shall see, although it clearly shows that a certain common view of what persons are is false, the fact that souls don't exist isn't as detrimental to religious belief as one might expect. It does not, for example, entail that God, free will, and the afterlife is a fiction.

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Why is it important?

Belief in souls is nearly ubiquitous in the non-academic world, while it is nearly absent in the scientific and philosophic world. Since it is import for one to proportion one's belief to the evidence, it is important to understand why philosophers and scientists doubt the existence of souls. It is also important to understand the religious significance the idea.

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This paper is intended for a general non-academic audience, and it useful for undergraduate classes, graduate classes, book clubs, and even Bible studies and Sunday school classes.

Dr David Kyle Johnson
King's College London

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This page is a summary of: DO SOULS EXIST?, Think, January 2013, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1477175613000195.
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