"On the battlefield of life" : J.M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K in the light of the mind-body problem

Kinga Jęczmińska

doi:10.5817/BSE2020-2-9

"On the battlefield of life" : J.M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K in the light of the mind-body problem

Vol.46,No.2(2020)

Kinga Jęczmińska

https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2020-2-9

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/143212

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the relation between the mind and the body in J. M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K in terms of theories discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind. Although spiritual and bodily aspects are often described in the novel as separate, there is no strong ontological assumption that the spirit can exist independently from the body. References to the spiritual dimension mostly appear in the descriptions of characters' subjective experiences and imagination. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the vision of the world in the novel oscillates between substance dualism and property dualism, but it is not entirely consistent with either of the philosophical views analysed.

Keywords:
J. M. Coetzee; Life & Times of Michael K; mind; body; the mind-body problem; substance dualism; property dualism

Pages:
159–179

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