For those already inclined toward materialism, the recent advancements in neuroscience—for instance, the ability of a surgeon to generate particular sensations by stimulating specific areas of the brain—show that there is nothing more to a human than millions of complexly organized cells. Materialists counterpose this conclusion to the allegedly discredited notion of the “soul” as an explanation for human consciousness and cognition. To William E. Carrol, however, neither materialism nor dualism “exhaust[s] the explanatory categories of the world”:
If we assume a materialist natural philosophy according to which there is not anything more to nature than material components, then we might very well conclude . . . that our thoughts are as material as the hearts beating inside our chests.
Another alternative, [however,] and a view that can incorporate what contemporary science discloses, can be found in the thought of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. For them, living things need to be understood in terms of material and immaterial principles: not that an organism is two separate substances joined together (dualism), but that there is more to an organism (indeed to any natural entity) than its material components. The very intelligibility of nature and of changes in nature calls for a view other than that set forth by materialism.
Organisms are real causes of what they do; they are not simply pushed and pulled about by extrinsic [mechanical] forces. But they cannot be real causes if they do not exist as real unified wholes. The source of that unity is other than the sum of material parts and processes.
Read more on First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/01/an-open-mind