Review of The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile
Them
By Owen Flanagan. New York: Basic Books. Pp. 364. ISBN: 0-465-02460-2 $27.50

In June 2002 baseball legend Ted Williams died, a newsworthy enough story
that then got legs when his son whisked the body away to Phoenix, Arizona
where it was cryonically frozen at minus 320 degrees, with the hope that one
day “Teddy Ballgame” would be resurrected to play again. If Williams’s body
were reanimated one day would it still be the cranky perfectionist who was
the last to hit .400? In other words, even if future cryonics scientists
could bring him back to life, would it still be “him”? Is the “soul” of Ted
Williams also in deep freeze along with his brain and body?

Duke University philosopher Owen Flanagan would probably answer “yes,” if by
soul we mean the pattern of Ted Williams’s memories, personality, and
personhood, and if the freezing process did not destroy the neural network in
the brain where such entities are stored. But as for some ethereal entity
that continues past physical death (whether buried, cremated, or frozen),
Flanagan would offer an emphatic “no.” In his latest book, The Problem of
the Soul, a courageous and daring look into the heart of what it means to be
human, Flanagan builds a bridge between two irreconcilable views of the mind:
the humanistic/theological versus the scientific/naturalistic. The former
includes a place within our brains for nonphysical mind, free will, and a
soul, but fails to offer any tangible proof that such things even exist. The
latter is grounded in solid empirical data but fails to show how humans as
evolved animals can lead moral and meaningful lives. Flanagan’s purpose is to
reconcile the two, and he has done so successfully in this crisply reasoned
and beautifully written work. “Can we do without the cluster of concepts that
are central to the humanistic image in its present form—the soul and its
suite—and still retain some or most of what these concepts were designed to
do?” Flanagan’s answer is an emphatic “yes.” To that I add “amen.”

It may simply be that I resonate well with Flanagan because I am a
nonbelieving, nontheistic, naturalistic scientist. After a lifetime spent
reading the obfuscating works of philosophers and theologians twisting logic
into pretzelian contortions to prove such unprovable concepts as God, the
soul, and free will, I want to stand up and cheer when I read passages such
as this one from Flanagan’s opening salvo: “There is no point beating around
the bush. Supernatural concepts have no philosophical warrant. Furthermore,
it is not that such concepts are displaced only if we accept, from the start,
a naturalistic or scientific visions of things. There simply are no good
arguments—theological, philosophical, humanistic, or scientific—for beliefs
in divine beings, miracles, or heavenly afterlives.”