Samuel Clarke - Correspondence With Anthony Collins

Correspondence With Anthony Collins

The public correspondence of Samuel Clarke with the English freethinker Anthony Collins in 1707 and 1708 was a debate on the nature of consciousness. The principal focus of the correspondence was the possibility of a materialist theory of mind. Collins defended the materialist position that consciousness was an emergent property of the brain, while Clarke opposed such a view and argued that mind and consciousness must be distinct from matter. The correspondence also inquired into the origins of consciousness, personal identity, free will, and determinism.