RESTORING THE SUBSTANCE TO THE SOUL OF PSYCHOLOGY

Currently, the self has replaced the soul as the major focus of much p sychological theorizing. I argue that this shift is due to a number of confusions regarding the nature and justification of substance dualis m. I also claim that this focus on the self, without a framework that treats it as a substantial soul, leads to a number of conceptual probl ems and terminological equivocations. Moreover, I show that certain fe atures of widely accepted views of the self actually seem to require a substantial soul to make sense. To substantiate these claims, Section I contains a discussion of a set of current misunderstandings about t he nature of a substance (e.g., that a substance is a static thing unr elated to other things), and a treatment of key problems with current models of the self (e.g., that the self is a construct of language). S ection II compares two very different views of wholes with parts-subst ances vs. property-things. Section III clarifies the essence of substa nce dualism by describing five states of the soul and the nature of a faculty of the soul. The section closes with a sketch of the main type s of considerations that justify belief in substance dualism. In the f inal section, I argue that the self is the soul by showing how key fea tures of certain psychological models of the self seem to require subs tance dualism to make sense and by clarifying a set of psychological t erms/concepts in light of what has been argued earlier.