The best thing about that class (besides the awesome reading material) was that our prof never once gave us his own opinion on the subject we were studying. Yes, I’m sure it came through in his teaching (you can never objectively teach this subject matter), but still he never told us what to believe, or even what he believed. He asked a question at the beginning of the semester, let us ruminate on it during all of our readings and discussions, then had us write a final paper discussing our findings. He asked us to answer the question based on what we read and believed. To me, that’s the best way to handle philosophy.

Let’s not take this into the argument of whether or not one believes in a soul. That’s up to one’s own belief but for those who do, dualist doesn’t fit the description of a believer. Tri-ist might be a better characterization – the belief of a body, mind and soul. Some may call it a conscious.