People are intuitive Dualists—they tacitly consider the mind as ethereal, distinct from the
body. Here we ask whether Dualism emerges naturally from the conflicting core principles …

People exhibit conflicting intuitions concerning the mind/body links. Here, I explore a novel
explanation for these inconsistencies: Dualism is a violable constraint that interacts with …

Why are disembodied extraordinary beings like gods and spirits prevalent in past and
present theologies? Under the intuitive Cartesian dualism hypothesis, this is because it is …

Several important philosophical problems (including the problems of perception, free will,
and scepticism) arise from antinomies that are developed through philosophical paradoxes …

What explains the ubiquity of religions across time and space, and why do these
supernatural belief systems seem to have so much in common? Many cognitive scientists of …

Consciousness arguably presents a “hard problem” for scholars. An influential position
asserts that the “problem” is rooted in ontology—it arises because consciousness “is” distinct …

This article explores three ways in which a cognitively entrenched mindreading (or'theory of
mind') system may bias our thinking as cognitive scientists. One issues in a form of tacit …

Many philosophical debates take for granted that there is such a thing as 'the'common-sense
conception of the phenomenon of interest. Debates about the nature of perception tend to …

When I was seven years old, my sister and I attended a local fair—the kind with carnival
barkers and games with giant stuffed animals. Among the sea of plushies, my sister and I …

All over the world, people reason dualistically. We consider it more probable that mental
states, such as love, continue after biological death than we think bodily states, such as …