Joint winner of the 2013 Philosophy prize essay competition

This article aimstoreviewthe standardobjectionstodualismandtoargue that either they will fail to convince someone committed to dualism or are flawed on independent grounds. I begin by presenting the taxonomyofmetaphysical positions on concrete particulars as they relate to the dispute between materialists and dualists, and in particular substance dualism is defined. In the first section, several kinds of substance dualism are distinguished and the relevant varieties of this kind of dualism are selected. The remaining sections are analyses of the standard objections to substance dualism: It is uninformative, has troubles accounting for soul individuation, causal pairing and interaction, violates laws of physics, is made implausible by the development of neuroscience and it postulates entitiesbeyondnecessity. Iconclude thatnoneof theseobjections is successful.