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Aristotle and descartes comparison
Descartes’ Arguments for Substance Dualism essay
Aristotle and descartes comparison
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Descartes' Theory of Substance Dualism
Throughout the history of man, philosophers have tried to come up with an
explanation of where our minds, or consciousness, came from and how we are able to
have a nonphysical characteristic of ourselves. Does our physical brain automatically
give us nonphysical characteristics like feelings, thoughts, and desires or is there
something else there, the mind, that interacts with our bodies and makes us feel, think,
and desire? Also, is the mind the only nonphysical entity in our universe or do other
entities exist such as ghosts or souls? One man came up with a theory to explain the two
different properties in our universe in which he called Dualism. Hopefully with his
theory of Substance Dualism, we can come up with some sort of answer to these
questions.
French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) believed two such properties
existed in life, the physical and the nonphysical. He broke his theory of Dualism into two
forms: Substance Dualism and Property Dualism. He explained that Substance Dualism
is the claim that nonphysical substances exist, and Property Dualism is the claim that
there are mental properties that are different from physical properties (Barcalow, pg. 70).
To put it another way, properties are what make up an object, and substance is what the
properties attach to in making that object. Many philosophers agree that substance is a
mysterious entity that is hard to explain. It's like a kind of flypaper to which properties
adhere, but flypaper that has no properties of its own, not even the property of being
sticky (Barcalow, pg. 71). Without substance, there are only properties of an object, not
the object as a whole.
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Descartes ...
... middle of paper ...
...to explain the relationship between our physical body and
nonphysical mind. Descartes makes sense in his theory and the objections Barcalow
came up with can be answered. Unless someone comes up with a theory that is better and
can disprove Descartes, I'm sticking with Descartes. I mean, something told my hands
what to type.
Overall, the mind and body relationship is a tricky subject. We as humans don't
fully know where the nonphysical properties of our mind came from nor do we know if
one exists. So far, Descartes came up with the best theory to explain it, but not everyone
believes it. There are also a few objections to his theory that raise questions as to if it can
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be believed. I believe Descartes was a man truly ahead of his time and helped in the
process of explaining the entities of human life no matter if anyone believes him or not.
ABSTRACT: I describe and analyze Anne Conway’s critique of Cartesian dualism. After a brief biographical introduction to Conway, I sketch some of the influences on her philosophy. I then describe her non-Cartesian view of substance. According to Conway, there is only one substance in created reality. This substance contains both matter and spirit. A purely material or spiritual substance is, she argues, an impossibility. Next, I discuss several of Conway’s arguments against Cartesian dualism. Firstly, dualism is inconsistent because dualists, while denying that concepts such as divisibility and extension are applicable to spiritual substance, nevertheless use such terms when describing the soul or spirit. They assume that soul or spirit is something particular which can be located somewhere. Secondly, she argues that dualism results in mechanism because it makes too sharp a distinction between body and soul, thus regarding the body as a mechanical machine and the soul as something which is not integrally related to the body. Thirdly, dualism cannot account for the interaction between mind and body. The two substances of which a dualist speaks are defined on the basis of the exclusion of characteristics. But the two things which have nothing in common cannot influence each other causally.
One of the major differences between humans and animals is our ability to reason and differentiate our actions from our instincts (Barrett, 2011, p. 3). Justin Barrett further explains this distinction in the first chapter of his book, Cognitive Science Religion and Theology. He explains that cognitive science recognizes the uniqueness of the human mind and focuses on explaining the thinking processes that take place(Barrett, 2011, p. 5). This may seem similar to what the field of neuroscience aims to do but, cognitive science is not as interested with the biological functions of the brain. Instead of looking at physical structures Barrett writes, that cognitive science focuses on broader processes such as perception, attention, memory, reasoning and learning (Barrett, 2011, p. 7). All of these processes interact with each other to create the big questions asked in cognitive science. Some of these big underlying questions of cognitive science are explored in this first chapter, questions such as “What is innate?” or “How are mind and bodies
Baird and Kaufmann, the editors of our text, explain in their outline of Descartes' epistemology that the method by which the thinker carried out his philosophical work involved first discovering and being sure of a certainty, and then, from that certainty, reasoning what else it meant one could be sure of. He would admit nothing without being absolutely satisfied on his own (i.e., without being told so by others) that it was incontrovertible truth. This system was unique, according to the editors, in part because Descartes was not afraid to face doubt. Despite the fact that it was precisely doubt of which he was endeavoring to rid himself, he nonetheless allowed it the full reign it deserved and demanded over his intellectual labors. "Although uncertainty and doubt were the enemies," say Baird and Kaufmann (p.16), "Descartes hit upon the idea of using doubt as a tool or as a weapon. . . . He would use doubt as an acid to pour over every 'truth' to see if there was anything that could not be dissolved . . . ." This test, they explain, resulted for Descartes in the conclusion that, if he doubted everything in the world there was to doubt, it was still then certain that he was doubting; further, that in order to doubt, he had to exist. His own existence, therefore, was the first truth he could admit to with certainty, and it became the basis for the remainder of his epistemology.
... like Descartes ever has any real concrete arguments for the existence or God or himself existing or any of his theories.
Richard Taylor explained why the body and the mind are one, and why they are not two separate substances. In the article “The Mind as a Function of the Body”, Taylor divides his article in a number of sections and explains clearly why dualism, or the theory that the mind and the body are separate is not conceivable. In one of these sections it is explained in detail the origin of why some philosophers and people believe in dualist metaphysics. As stated by Taylor “when we form an idea of a body or a physical object, what is most likely to come to mind is not some person or animal but something much simpler, such as a stone or a marble”(133). The human has the tendency to believe a physical object as simple, and not containing anything complex. A problem with believing this is that unlike a stone or a marble a human (or an animal) has a brain and the body is composed of living cells (excluding dead skin cells, hair, and nails which are dead cells). The f...
This paper will be discussing René Descartes’ argument on substance dualism, and more specifically the argument of separation of the mind and the body. Descartes proposes the argument of substance dualism in defense of the view that there are two types of substances: the mental substance and the physical substance. Therefore, substance dualism also states that the mind is a mental substance which is separate from the body, despite both having a connection to each other. This view is in contrast to the more popular physicalist view, which states that all entities in the world are solely physical.
The desire to avoid dualism has been the driving motive behind much contemporary work on the mind-body problem. Gilbert Ryle made fun of it as the theory of 'the ghost in the machine', and various forms of behaviorism and materialism are designed to show that a place can be found for thoughts, sensations, feelings, and other mental phenomena in a purely physical world. But these theories have trouble accounting for consciousness and its subjective qualia. As the science develops and we discover facts, dualism does not seems likely to be true.
(Scientists have discovered that there are a large number of internal brain structures, which work together with the input and output brain structures to form fleeting images in the mind. Using these images, we learn to interpret input signals, process them, and formulate output responses in a deliberate, conscious, way.)
Princess Elizabeth 's objection to Substance Dualism rests on her belief that because the mind does not have surfaces, the mind can not transfer energy to the body and therefore can not make the body react. I will challenge this idea by offering another form of causation.
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...
In other words, a necessary and sufficient connection must exist between ANYTHING created by humans and the minds of humans. Even a gas pump must have a "mind-correlate". It is also conceivable that representations of the "non-human" parts of the Universe exist in our minds, whether a-priori (not deriving from experience) or a-posteriori (dependent upon experience). This "correlation", "emulation", "simulation", "representation" (in short : close connection) between the "excretions", "output", "spin-offs", "products" of the human mind and the human mind itself - is a key to understanding it.
his theory that I find to be the most credible is The Other Mind Reply offered
dreaming or that you are awake. Therefore it is possible that everything we believe is
There are three main perspectives of metaphysics in philosophy, which “examine the nature of reality”, defined in Friedenberg and Silverman (2015). This studies the issue of mind-body, asking questions, such as, “What is the mind? Is it physical? Does the body necessarily need a mind?” As well as “What is consciousness? Does it exist in everything? “The mind-body problem addresses how physiological or mental properties are related to physical properties”.
whether or not this theory is true, and I believe that it is a theory