Topics Mind

Question How can an object or thing that is not physical (like the mind or the soul) be located in space? Is it actually located in space? If it is not, then where is it located?

Accepted:
December 6, 2005

Comments

According to property dualism, there are no non-physical substances, but there are non-physical properties, such as the property of having a certain kind of experience. So just as a physical property of a brain, say its mass, is located in the same place the brain is, so the property dualist may be able to say that a non-physical property of a brain is located there too.

An interesting question, and one that is important to those substnace dualists (i.e., those who believe there exist both material and immaterial substances) want to explain how immaterial souls can act on material bodies and how material bodies can act on immaterial souls.

Here's one answer from the history of early modern philosophy:

The eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that impenetrability is the crucial concept for understanding spatial location: a substance is located in that region of space that it "fills" or "occupies" by exerting a repulsive force against other substances in space; a substance is located in that volume of space from which it repulses other substances (i.e., which other substances cannot penetrate).

The early Kant was a substance dualist who believed that there were spiritual substances that possessed a repulsive force and occupied space in just this way. (A major difficulty with this answer is that it is difficult to understand why substances that possess forces like repulsion are not physical substances. Kant had a complicated answer, but ultimately an unsatisfactory one -- this is a big problem for his early metaphysics.)

Later in his life, Kant remained a substance dualist who believed that there existed a non-physical soul, but he jettisoned the idea that the soul had to possess impenetrability to be present in the world. Instead, he developed an interesting distinction between "virtual" and "local" presence in space, and he argued that immaterial substances have only a virtual presence in space: he tried to explain how immaterial substances like souls could act on matter in space without themselves being located in space. (Here too the underlying metaphysics are complex, but interestingly so.)

So, the early Kant would answer your question that all substances in our world, both material and immaterial ones, possess attractive and repulsive forces and are located in space in virtue of a "region of impenetrability" created by the exertion of those forces on other substances.

Later on, Kant would answer your question by saying that immaterial substances can act on material substances, and that they have a "virtual" location in space determined by the physical location of that interaction but are not themselves located in space.

The property dualism that Peter describes is attractive to many philosophers. To the extent, however, that religious or other reasons make substance dualism attractive to non-philosophers these "old" arguments from Kant have some contemporary interest.

Question How can an object or thing that is not physical (like the mind or the soul) be located in space? Is it actually located in space? If it is not, then where is it located? Accepted:December 6, 2005

Question How can an object or thing that is not physical (like the mind or the soul) be located in space? Is it actually located in space? If it is not, then where is it located?

Accepted:
December 6, 2005