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Descartes solution to mind body issue
Rene Descartes theories on dualism
Descartes solution to mind body issue
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“Cogito ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.)” – René Descartes
Possibly the most well-known of all philosophical quotations; ‘I think, therefore I am’ was devised by the famous 16th century French philosopher René Descartes. He believed that all knowledge, rather than being facts, is only composed of varying levels of belief and hence our knowledge is dubitable. However, one thing he knew for certain is that he himself must exist, because in order for him to question the nature of his existence, there must exist something to actually ask the question. Consequently, we cannot doubt the existence of our own minds because the mental status of doubt itself confirms its existence. But how do we know that all this is true? How can we be sure that
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Dualism is the idea of two distinct worlds: the public - the physical world of brain states, and the private - the psychical world of mental states. Physical properties, like the brain and body, are considered public because they are tangible and can be divided, destroyed and altered. On the other hand, mental properties are composed of non-material substance of mind and spirit involving consciousness and intentionality possessed by a subject or self.
In defining mind and matter, Descartes is simultaneously equating the mind with the soul whilst proving it to be distinct from the body and matter. Many philosophers of mind have attempted to address the mind-body problem, proving the relationship between the above two elements. Famously addressed by Descartes, he explored the relationship between consciousness and the brain as he provided several arguments in defence to his stance to the explanation of the union between the mind (or soul) and the body. One of which is the argument from indivisibility:
1. The body is divisible into
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“When I think about my mind—or, in other words, about myself insofar as I am just a thinking thing—I can’t distinguish any parts; I understand myself to be a single, unified thing. Although my whole mind seems united to my whole body, I know that cutting off a foot, arm, or other limb would not take anything away from my mind." (p. 138, left) Nevertheless, this may just be a verbal dispute as there is no doubt that targeted brain damage can cause selective loss of a faculty, or even more strange changes to the mind, possibly proving the mind to be divisible. Thus, this premise is not falsifiable as there may be an undiscovered method beyond human capabilities to divide the
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.
...what Richard Taylor might have already done. Nagel at no time in his essay made any strong points on the mind and brain being separate, but his points were built to disprove Taylor’s last point. Nagel’s statement about Martians being able to learn more about our brains than us allows us to reach the conclusion that at no point there is the necessity to believe that there is a soul or a mind separate from the body. What it proves is that science is still trying to better itself and cannot currently explain private psychological states or experiences, but that the mind is the brain and the brain is the body.
There was one thing that Descartes knew for certain, he existed. If Descartes was able to think, then he existed, which comes from one of his most famous quotes, “I think; therefore I am.” He knew that since he existed, he could not have created himself, so something else had to have created his existence. He believed that one could go down the line and keep asking what caused that person to exist and so on until eventually ending with an infinite self-causing being, which is God. He used this notion of an existing God to prove his distinction of ideas.
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.
Descartes’s approach to understanding the difference between mind and matter initially began by him doubting all truths which he had grown up believing to be true. He believed that if anything he held to be true was ever deceiving, he would reject its reliability all together. This extreme doubt resulted in Descartes
In my experience, I am aware of many cases in which my body affects my mind (I stub my toe & I feel pain) and many cases in which my mind affects my body (I feel an itch & I scratch it).
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]
...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.
I do not think that the mind and body are the same thing. Both from arguments relating to my own beliefs, and with supporting arguments I hope to have thoroughly explained why I feel this way. I just don?t see how something as unique as the mind, with so much nonphysical substance to it, can be a part of the brain, an object which is so definitively physical. Although I feel the two are separate, this does not mean that I think they have no connections at all. The mind and brain are, without a doubt, a team. They interact together and run the body, however, they just are not the same thing.
Do you think that Descartes qualifies to your satisfaction that the mind and body are separate from each other? Only halfway; too many things are left up in the air, and the language is not quite clear. The mind and body can each exist separately and independently of one another. But they also need one another to work properly. This relationship is why the mind and body argument was shown with the sailor and ship scenario. By claiming that the mind and body were similarly related to each other as the sailor and the ship, Descartes was giving the average but intuitive reader something to ponder about while trying to make up his or her own mind about the relation between mind and body. From my point of view, however, Descartes needs further argument to prove that the mind and the body are distinct.
Dualism is the idea that the mind is a separate entity that has no connection to the physical body.
Dualism is the theory that mind and matter are two distinct things. The main argument for dualism is that facts about the objective external world of particles and fields of force, as revealed by modern physical science, are not facts about how things appear from any particular point of view, whereas facts about subjective experience are precisely about how things are from the point of view of individual conscious subjects. They have to be described in the first person as well as in the third person.
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...
...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.
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 ...