Against Materialism

Materialism is the idea that human beings are material objects—brains, perhaps, or some part of the brain—without immaterial selves or souls. I give two arguments against materialism. The first is an argument from possibility: it is possible that I should exist when no part of my body exists, in which case I am not identical with my body or any part of my body. The second is an argument from impossibility. If materialism is true, a belief, for example, the belief that the British lost the American Revolutionary War, would have to be something like an event in one’s nervous system. But it is impossible that a material process or event be about something; no such process could be about the British or anything else. So either there are no beliefs or materialism is false. But obviously there are beliefs.