In the sixth meditation, Descartes presents an argument regarding mind and body dualism: the mind and body are utterly distinct. He holds that they are both discrete and that the mind is a purely non-physical substance. His argument attempts to show and validate that the mind is a completely separate and distinct entity from the body and that he can exist without it. First, he makes the claim that God is omnipotent, yet a good and pure God; therefore, if Descartes is strongly inclined to believe something as true, it would be deceptive of God to make him think otherwise. Therefore, in his perfect will, Descartes is convinced that anything he is able to conceive of is possible (Wiki, 4). With this, for the rest of the paper I will explain the argument Descartes offers for this argument for dualism, offer my own take on the theory, and an objection to his argument.
Descartes must prove that the mind and body are distinct and he does this as follows. First, since the mind and the body can each be conceived clearly and distinctly apart from each other, it follows that God could cause either to exist independently of the other, and this satisfies the traditional criteria for a metaphysical and real distinction. In other words, if he can conceive of something clearly and distinctly (without contradiction), then that that thing is metaphysically possible (it is possible for God to establish it). Descartes then goes on to say that he can conceive of himself existing solely as a thinking being, with the absence of his body. Furthermore, he conceives of his body existing solely as a thing incompatible to thinking without Descartes being resided in it. Therefore it is metaphysically possible for the mind, his mind for that matter, to...
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... So following all of this, if the 'sensible objects' that we perceive are of the mind, then we can not claim that there is an external world (class, lecture) (James, 2).
In conclusion, mind-body dualism is still not resolved for most people so it must be plausible. Descartes’ rejection of anything he could doubt led to an introversion that has been very rewarding in the history of ideas. He seemingly was first to establish the subjective nature of thought and how hard it is to reconcile with the physical world. This led to investigation into the causation interaction of these two separate worlds that has not yet been resolved. There are strong arguments against mind-body dualism but it is overall a well established concept for many people for many different reasons; and I believe the theories at hand here established by Descartes are the best principles.
Descartes' error, Antonio Damasio tells us, was his belief in "the abyssal separation between body and mind . . . " (250). As Damasio notes, there are certainly many specific "errors" in Descartes' writings--that heat causes the circulation of the blood, for example, or that movement is translated instantaneously through the plenum from one object to another--but all these notions have been "corrected" by subsequent theory in ways that we can imagine Descartes himself might easily accept. The "abyssal separation" persists as the central cliché of modern philosophy because we do not yet agree on a solution, and Descartes serves as the convenient scapegoat for those who want to argue for the reduction of mind to matter. Damasio himself is part of a new generation of neuroscientists who, using the framework of connectionism or neural network theory, think they posses a solution to the mind/body [End Page 943] problem. The actual object of his attack is thus not so much Descartes but those cognitive psychologists who have defined themselves in terms of a Cartesian "nativism" or doctrine of innate elements of knowledge not derived from sensation. None of these "nativists" literally believes in mind/ body dualism, but insofar as they cling to the central functionalist dogma that mind can be instantiated in any physical system they de facto treat mind as something that can be considered apart from embodiment, and they embrace, more or less, an overtly Cartesian methodology, which Jerry Fodor has called "methodological solipsism." 1
He explains the concept of Cartesian body in which he states that there is some connection between mind and body. Mind doesn’t necessarily need any imagination for thinking process but body is somewhere linked to imagination. He explains many links between mind and body. He gives examples like if he feels hungry, his mind would tell his body to eat something. These types of examples make him understand that mind and body works in a parallel way. But mind is distinct from the body, as Descartes’s existence is a thinking thing which is independent of body and Descartes’s body is an extended thing which is independent of mind. So he concludes that he being a thinking thing can exist without a body. But mind and body are combined to form one unit. This leads him to the idea of Cartesian dualism, which is mind-body dualism. If we carefully use our mind, we can avoid judgments which consist of errors. Furthermore, he explains the existence of external material things. He proves it by explaining that he believes in the existence of external material things because of his senses. God has created him with this nature and as God is not a deciever, material things exist and contain the properties necessary for
Many ancient philosophers, including Plato, explored metaphysics in relation to reality before Descartes’s in-depth questioning of the subject. However, Descartes’s views on mind/body dualism differ greatly from Plato’s. As Marleen Rozemond (author of Descartes's Dualism) points out, Plato believes that the body is simply a vessel for the soul to use, while Descartes provides proof that the body and soul are interconnected (172). One does not simply use the other; though they are separate, the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. Cartesian dualism tells us that "although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, I recognize that if a foot or arm or any other part of the body is cut off, nothing has thereby been taken away from the mind" (414). However, Descartes also states that "nature also teaches me by . . . [sensations] that I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit" (412). Descartes shows through his dualism that though the mind and body are separate entities, they are connected and reliant on one another. This is one key idea that separates Descartes from great thinkers like Plato. Add another Rozemond quote.
existed in life, the physical and the nonphysical. He broke his theory of Dualism into two
Our mind and our body are undoubtedly separate from each other. A mind can survive without a body, and, likewise, a body is just house for the mind. In The Meditations, Descartes describes this concept in his dualist theory in the second of multiple Meditations. We can reach this conclusion by first understanding that the mind can survive any destruction of the body, and then realizing that you are identical to your mind and not your body. In other words, you are your thoughts and experiences – not your physical body. Finally, you cannot doubt your own existence, because the act of doubting is, itself, and act of thinking, and to think is to exist as a “thinking thing,” or Res Cogitans.
This radical separation of mind and body makes it difficult to account for the apparent interaction of the two in my own case. In ordinary experience, it surely seems that the volitions of my mind can cause physical movements in my body and that the physical states of my body can produce effects on my mental operations. But on Descartes's view, there can be no substantial connection between the two, nor did he believe it appropriate to think of the mind as residing in the body as a pilot resides within a ship. Although he offered several tenatative suggestions in his correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, Descartes largely left for future generations the task of developing some reasonable account of volition and sensation, either by securing the possibility of mind-body interaction or by proposing some alternative explanation of the appearances.
However, Descartes claims that the mind and body have been created separated without good reason. This point is not shown clearly, and further, although I can conceive of my own mind existing independently of my body, it does not necessarily exist as so. On page 56, when Descartes talks about how sailors are related to ships and why the mind body union is different, he is vague on the metaphorical analogy. To try to get his point across, dualism is used.
Surprisingly dualism has become synonymous with Rene Descartes that often times it is many just referred to by many as Cartesian dualism, as if this was the decisive line of attack to the issue. The theory behind dualism is that the mind and the body, that mind and matter, are two distinct things. Descartes well-thought-out the difficulty of the location of the mind and came to the conclusions that the mind was a completely separate entity from the body. Descartes stated that he is a subject of conscious thought and experience and thus cannot be nothing more than spatially extended matter. The fundamental nature of the human being, or the mind, are unable to be material but are obliged to be no...
Outline and assess Descartes' arguments for the conclusion that mind and body are distinct substances.
In this essay, I plan to defend Descartes ' theory of Substance Dualism against the objection made by Princess Elizabeth. Substance Dualism is theory which states that there are two fundamental substances, mind and body. Princess Elizabeth 's objection against Substance Dualism is based off of her idea of how the mind and body interact in order for mental causation to occur. I defend Descartes 's theory by offering my own objection against Princess Elizabeth 's idea of what causation is.
René Descartes was the 17th century, French philosopher responsible for many well-known philosophical arguments, such as Cartesian dualism. Briefly discussed previously, according to dualism, brains and the bodies are physical things; the mind, which is a nonphysical object, is distinct from both the brain and from all other body parts (Sober 204). Sober makes a point to note Descartes never denied that there are causal interactions between mental and physical aspects (such as medication healing ailments), and this recognition di...
One of the ways in which Descartes attempts to prove that the mind is distinct from the body is through his claim that the mind occupies no physical space and is an entity with which people think, while the body is a physical entity and cannot serve as a mechanism for thought. [1]
In Meditation Six entitled “Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and Real Distinction between the Mind and Body”, one important thing Descartes explores is the relationship between the mind and body. Descartes believes the mind and body are separated and they are two difference substances. He believes this to be clearly and distinctly true which is a Cartesian quality for true knowledge. I, on the other hand, disagree that the mind and body are separate and that the mind can exist without the body. First, I will present Descartes position on mind/body dualism and his proof for such ideas. Secondly, I will discuss why I think his argument is weak and offer my own ideas that dispute his reasoning while I keep in mind how he might dispute my argument.
Descartes is a very well-known philosopher and has influenced much of modern philosophy. He is also commonly held as the father of the mind-body problem, thus any paper covering the major answers of the problem would not be complete without covering his argument. It is in Descartes’ most famous work, Meditations, that he gives his view for dualism. Descartes holds that mind and body are com...
...nclude, Ryle is correct in his challenge of Descartes’ Cartesian dualism, the mind and body are not two separate parts as dictated by dualist, rather the working of the mind are not distinct from the body. As a result, an observer can understand the mind of another through the actions of the body. It is the combination that makes up a human, human, as they are one and the same.