The Soul

The notion of a soul - an immaterial bearer of consciousness distinct from the body - enjoyed traditional popularity but recently the idea has been questioned, frequently rejected, and sometimes ridiculed. This book argues that the view that persons are immaterial minds capable of surviving death, is in fact a more defensible view than any of its competitors.

Moving beyond traditional disputes between mind-body dualists and idealists to focus on what dualists and idealists agree on in opposition to physicalists, Yandell explores the nature of persons according to, and as they occur within, central religious traditions.

He concludes that those Christians who have rejected the soul, and opted for the view that the mind is only the more articulate capacities of the body, have exchanged truth for falsehood.