Descartes' Argument that the Mind is Better than the Body

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Descartes’ argue that mind is better known than body by first claiming humans as fundamentally rational, meaning “a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling,” ( Descartes, 19) he therefore argues that humans have the ability to know their proper minds clearly and distinctly. He proposes the conception of the mind where the imagination and the senses are also inherent capabilities of the body (faculties), specifically powers of the mind.
But in order to further clarify this "thing that thinks,” he admits that there is always the possibility that he may be dreaming or deceived by an evil demon, since he is something that also imagines and senses seen. (13,15). He elaborates on this idea that if he is after all dreaming or being deceived by an evil demon, he can still imagine things and he still appears to hear and see things. In other words, his sensory perceptions, that which corresponds to his body, may not be “veridical,” but they are regardless still a part of the same mind that thinks. After proving that the senses, cannot be trusted he similarly concludes the imagination can neither be trusted. The imagination can come up with many false ideas, therefore the imagination cannot be the guide to knowing the essence of his own self. At first Descartes does not understand why he has such a difficult time identifying what is this “I” that thinks.
To better define himself, Descartes elaborates on the example of wax. How does one come to understand and know a piece of wax, is it by means of the senses or something else? He reflects on what he can know about the piece of wax and determines that wax is not wax simply due to its color or shape, since all of these things can change and the substance w...

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...e about the mind than about the world outside the mind. In my opinion this is not a strong argument unless every imaginative thought, perception, or idea was able to inform one something new about the mind, rather than simply support previous things already known. According to Descartes his thoughts are only implying one thing, that one exists, and that that existing thing is capable of thinking. Descartes needs to better explain particularly hoe every new thought makes the mind better known than the body. If he claims that mind is better known than the body, he is not accounting for all the things that are still unknown about the mind, since no one can be sure that they know everything about the mind. Therefore Descartes’ claims that the mind is not also a corporeal thing, but only a thinking thing cannot be valid unless every single thing about the mind is known.

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