In the quest to grasp the nature of our reality, the clash between materialism and dualism is arguably the last battleground between experimental science and the beliefs and traditions born of common human experience.

Science has displaced the Earth from the center of the Cosmos and Homo sapiens from the center of Nature, but at this point in history the puzzle of consciousness remains one that materialism cannot fully tease apart. For the moment, dualism remains deeply woven into human culture through language, religious belief, moral philosophy, and legal principle. If there is to be a third revolution in our view of ourselves, it still lies somewhere ahead of us–though perhaps only just ahead.

A Sampling of Materialist Thought:

• A Materialist Theory of Mind, David M. Armstrong (Routledge)
• The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul, Paul Churchland (MIT Press)
• Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett (Little, Brown)
• Journey to the Centers of the Mind, Susan A. Greenfield (Freeman)
• The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own, Richard Restak (Harmony)

A Sampling of Dualist Thought:

• Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes
• What Survives?, Gary Doore, ed. (Tarcher)
• The Engines of the Soul, W.D. Hart (Cambridge)
• The Challenge of Reincarnation, Charles E. Luntz (Luntz)
• The Case for Dualism, J.R. Smythies & John Beloff, eds. (University Press of Virginia)