The persistance of dualism

The abstract of this paper about a certain rare condition claims to present evidence "this condition, long thought to be entirely psychological in origin, actually has a neurological basis."  I suspect that the authors would claim not to take dualism at all seriously, and yet only a dualist should think that it is even possible for a condition to be entirely psychological in a way which contrasts with it being neurological.  Any materialist should think that all entirely psychological conditions are also neurological.

Comments

[Richard Chappell]

Hell, even dualists should think that (though the latter post suggests a more charitable interpretation).

[Aaron Boyden]

Wow, I don't remember reading that second post of yours, even though of course I follow your blog. I have no idea how I missed it. Anyway, thanks for the link; you do have a great discussion of it, and there are some good comments, too. I am actually especially interested in this case in the issue of treatment. I don't think "psychological" just means "treatable by talk therapy" or that "neurological" just means "treatable by drugs or surgery." Still, I think one of the implications of putting a disorder in one category or the other is that people draw conclusions about how it can/should be treated. Since such conclusions should (I think) really only be based on what works best, not on whatever categories the disorders get slotted in for any other reason, I think it's important to remind people of the murkiness of this distinction.