R. William Hasker (; born 1935) is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Huntington University. For many years he was editor of the prestigious journal Faith and Philosophy. He has published many journal articles and books dealing with issues such as the mind–body problem, theodicy, and divine omniscience.
Hasker received his PhD in theology and philosophy of religion from the University of Edinburgh.[1]
Hasker has argued for open theism and a view known as "emergent dualism" regarding the nature of the human person. Hasker regards the soul as an "emergent" substance, dependent upon the body for its existence.[2] [3]
Hasker's emergent dualism rejects cartesian dualism, property dualism and physicalism.[4] He argues that emergent dualism supports free will, mental causation, rationality and survival of physical death and is compatible with neuroscientific discoveries showing the dependence of mind on brain. Emergent dualism states that in the course of evolutionary development an individual mind as an immaterial substance emerges from the brain. He likens the individual mind to a magnetic field in its qualitative difference from the physical properties that generate it and also in its ability to act on the brain that generates it. Hasker disagrees with the traditional dualist view that the mind exists independently of the body as he holds the view that it is generated by matter. He defends survival of death on the ground that God's mind produces another body to sustain it.[4]
His 1999 publication The Emergent Self discusses the philosophy of mind and attempts to establish that mind cannot be solely a material process but is also not completely distinct from its physical basis in the brain.[5]
Hasker has published numerous works. A selection: