Arguments for libertarian free will (free choices not fully determined by prior physical causes) often motivate substance dualism, because they treat persons as genuine causes. Roderick Chisholm’s work is widely cited in this context for developing “agent causation,” where a person (not just an event) can cause an action. This provided a framework later dualists used to connect mind, action, and responsibility.
Richard Swinburne’s The Evolution of the Soul argued that mental events are not identical to physical events, even if they interact causally. He defended a contemporary version of substance dualism: the idea that a human person includes an immaterial soul as well as a body. This helped set an agenda for later religiously engaged analytic work on mind, personal identity, and survival after death.
John Foster’s The Immaterial Self offered a sustained defense of a Cartesian-style view of the mind as an immaterial self, distinct from the body. The book directly engaged leading physicalist and reductionist theories, aiming to show they could not capture the reality of conscious subjectivity and personal identity. It became a major late-20th-century reference point for substance dualist arguments in analytic philosophy.
In a revised edition, Swinburne restated the core claims more explicitly: mental and physical events are distinct, and humans consist of soul and body. By revisiting and tightening the argument, he kept substance dualism in active discussion in late-20th-century analytic philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion.
William Hasker’s The Emergent Self argued that a conscious self can emerge from a functioning brain yet still count as an immaterial substance with causal powers. This “emergent dualism” tried to take neuroscience seriously while rejecting the idea that consciousness is nothing but brain activity. It broadened contemporary religious and philosophical defenses beyond strictly Cartesian models.
Kevin Corcoran’s edited collection Soul, Body, and Survival brought together leading philosophers on dualism, physicalism, personal identity, and post-mortem survival. By placing “survival” alongside metaphysics of persons, it framed dualism not just as a mind–brain theory but as a view with implications for resurrection, immortality, and religious hope. The volume became a focal point for early-2000s analytic exchanges between competing models of the self.
Alvin Plantinga’s “Against Materialism” argued that materialism faces serious problems, especially concerning consciousness and the possibility of persons existing without their bodies. While Plantinga is best known for work in epistemology and philosophy of religion, this article became a frequently cited analytic contribution to the case for dualism-friendly views of the self. It also showed how debates about mind can connect to debates about theism and human nature.
Stewart Goetz’s Naturalism (with Charles Taliaferro credited as contributor) argued that “strict naturalism” struggles to explain persons, consciousness, and value. This line of critique often supports substance dualism by claiming that purely physical descriptions leave out key facts about first-person experience and agency. The book helped connect philosophy-of-mind debates to broader worldview disagreements in contemporary philosophy of religion.
E. J. Lowe developed a “non-Cartesian” substance dualism in which a person is distinct from the body but can still have some physical properties in virtue of possessing a body. This aimed to avoid a common objection: that dualism makes persons too “ghost-like” to be embodied agents. Lowe also emphasized interactionism—the idea that mental causes can bring about physical effects—keeping mental causation central to the view.
In A Brief History of the Soul, Goetz and Taliaferro traced ideas about the soul from ancient philosophy to contemporary philosophy of mind. The book was not only historical; it also aimed to defend a soul (commonly aligned with substance dualism) against modern objections. It functioned as an accessible entry point for students and researchers trying to understand why dualism continues to attract defenders.
Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will presented a contemporary argument for substance dualism alongside a defense of libertarian free will. The work explicitly claimed that neuroscience cannot, in principle, rule out mental-to-physical causation, and it used thought experiments about personal identity to support the idea that we are essentially souls. This book helped carry substance dualism into 21st-century analytic discussions shaped by cognitive science.
Joshua R. Farris’s The Soul of Theological Anthropology argued that a Cartesian-style substance dualism can be used constructively in Christian theology, not only defensively against materialism. It treated issues like embodiment, intermediate state (existence between death and resurrection), and resurrection in a systematic way. This marked a shift toward building positive dualist frameworks for theology, rather than only replying to physicalist objections.
Contemporary Substance Dualism: Religious and Philosophical Defenses (1970s–present)