Descartes: Relationship Between Mind and Body

935 Words2 Pages

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 argues that the mind and body can be thought of as separate substances. Descartes writes “I have a body that is very closely joined to me, nevertheless, because … I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, insofar as I am merely a thinking thing and not an extended thing and because … I have a distinct idea of a body, insofar as it is merely an extended thing and not a thinking thing, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it” ( Descartes 50). With this quote, Descartes is saying that the mind and body are separate because he has two distinct ideas of the body and the mind and the body is not a thinking thing as he is but an extended substance. Another point to Descartes argument is that the mind and body are different due to one being indivisible and the other being divisible. Descartes writes “a body, by its very nature, is always divisible. On the other hand, the mind is utterly indivisible” (53). Here is saying that there are ...

... middle of paper ...

...ning of mind is something that cannot be divisible but that is hard to see because I have already proved that by my understanding of the mind it has parts. It is also hard to think of a mind or soul that does not have such things as memory and personality therefore I believe Descartes argument is false.
In short, I summarized Descartes position of the relationship of the mind and body. After that I discussed two objections to his argument which were related to the mind existing without the body and that the mind is not divisible while I discussed how Descartes might respond to these arguments. These arguments adequately show that Descartes argument for mind/body dualism is false.

Works Cited

Descartes. "Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy." Readings in Modern Philosophy. Ed. Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. Vol. I. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000. 22-55. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Review of Descartes: An Intellectual Biography and Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    To read Damasio's critique alongside Stephen Gaukroger's remarkably rich intellectual biography of Descartes, however, is to realize that Damasio could just as aptly have titled his book "Descartes' Vision." As Gaukroger points out, Descartes was reviled during his lifetime and for a century after his death not for his dualism but for his materialism. Only when the history of philosophy was rewritten in the nineteenth century as the story of epistemology did Descartes come to bear the double designation of being both the "father" of modern philosophy and the ranking nativist who visited upon us the catastrophic separation of mind from body and of reason from emotion. These labels are essentially caricatures that distort the actual complexity of what Descartes struggled to work out in his cognitive theory. Gaukroger reconstructs this struggle for us, sometimes on a month-by-month basis, showing how Descartes shuttled back and forth between an account of the body and the pursuit of the mind.

    Read More

  • Descartes Doubt Argument Analysis

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    Descartes gives reasons to say his mind could exist without his body, however these reasons are not good enough for us to agree with him. Descartes’ two strongest reasons for this are the doubt argument and the divisibility argument.

    Read More

  • Descartes Conceivability Argument Analysis

    1476 Words  | 3 Pages

    Outline and assess Descartes' arguments for the conclusion that mind and body are distinct substances.

    Read More

  • Exploring Knowledge and Doubt in 'Meditations on First Philosophy'

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Essay On The Soul By Elizabeth And Descartes

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    Elizabeth writes a letter to Descartes asking him to explain to her the relationship “there is between the soul, which is immaterial, and the body, which is material” (Margaret A.: p16). She seeks this clarification particularly on the aspect of how the soul influences the body movements. This question comes following a claim that Descartes had made “regarding the body and the soul” (Gordon B. and Katherine J.: p17 -19). He intimated that the body and the soul exist as single entities and that each has autonomous function. This is found in the philosophy of the dualism.

    Read More

  • Cartesian Dualism vs Logical Behaviorism

    1489 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Essay On The Meditations By Descartes

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Meditation on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    1. "RENÉ DESCARTES AND THE LEGACY OF MIND/BODY DUALISM." Rene Descartes and the Legacy of Mind/Body Dualism. Web. . .

    Read More

  • Analysis of Descartes’ Mind/Body Distinction

    1172 Words  | 3 Pages

    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]

    Read More

  • Rene Descartes: Cartesian Dualism

    1632 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...tions rose by his objectors, for me, from a rather impregnable undermining of Descartes’ philosophy. As their must simply be interaction between two extended objects for any sort of reaction to take place. Therefore the movement that results from such a reaction must occur between two extended objects. This is my main and principal concern with Descartes philosophy and is the reason I, at least believe, Descartes does not make a convincing argument over the nature of mind-body separation. As from looking solely at Descartes research, he is not right to say there is a divide between the body and the mind.

    Read More

  • Descartes' First Meditation

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rene Descartes decision to shatter the molds of traditional thinking is still talked about today. He is regarded as an influential abstract thinker; and some of his main ideas are still talked about by philosophers all over the world. While he wrote the "Meditations", he secluded himself from the outside world for a length of time, basically tore up his conventional thinking; and tried to come to some conclusion as to what was actually true and existing. In order to show that the sciences rest on firm foundations and that these foundations lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes must begin by bringing into doubt all the beliefs that come to him by the senses. This is done in the first of six different steps that he named "Meditations" because of the state of mind he was in while he was contemplating all these different ideas. His six meditations are "One:Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", "Two:Concerning the Nature of the Human mind: that it is better known than the Body", "Three: Concerning God, that he exists", "Four: Concerning the True and the False", "Five: Concerning the Essence of Material things, and again concerning God, that he exists" and finally "Six: Concerning the Existence of Material things, and the real distinction between Mind and Body". Although all of these meditations are relevant and necessary to understand the complete work as a whole, the focus of this paper will be the first meditation.

    Read More

  • Descartes Sixth Meditation

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes makes a point that there is a distinction between mind and body. It is in Meditation Two when Descartes believes he has shown the mind to be better known than the body. In Meditation Six, however, he goes on to claim that, as he knows his mind and knows clearly and distinctly that its essence consists purely of thought. Also, that bodies' essences consist purely of extension, and that he can conceive of his mind and body as existing separately. By the power of God, anything that can be clearly and distinctly conceived of as existing separately from something else can be created as existing separately. 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.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Individuation and Identity In Descartes´ Philosophical View of the Mind-Body Dualism

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    Using Strawson’s examination as a guide to Descartes philosophy,i have tried to show how the two issues, of individuation and identity threaten to destroy Descartes’ philosophy of mind-body dualism.

    Read More

  • Cartesian Dualism and Gilbert Ryle

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • Descartes’, Spinoza’s, and Leibniz’s Response to the Mind-Body Problem

    2994 Words  | 6 Pages

    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...

    Read More

More about Descartes: Relationship Between Mind and Body

Open Document