Rene Descartes Cartesian Dualism

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher who used his understanding of his consciousness to develop Cartesian dualism, or the theology that ‘the mind and body are considered different substances’ (Solomon 332). Descartes believed that humans are composed of two different type substances or beings. The first are material substances or a material beings, which are physical substances or matter that take up space. The second being is a thinking substances or a thinking beings that are sometimes equated with the soul. These thinking substances, such as the soul, are nonphysical substances of the mind that engage in various actions such as thought, doubt, and imagining. The mind is a thinking substance that does not take up space and therefore cannot be perceived with someone's senses. Although these two substances interact, it is unclear how they do so because they are separate from each other; mind-body dualism is a direct example of this dilemma. The body is a material substance, while mind appears to be a thinking substance. The body and the mind not only interact, but also appear to have an

According to the identity theory, “there are mental events, but they are identical to-the same thing as-certain physical events, that is, processes in the brain” (Solomon 349). The identity theory disregards the idea that two substances interact together and proposes that there is just one mental event that occurs, but there are constant interactions in the human body that occur between the mind and the body. When you explore how the nervous system functions, you will find that there are interactions that occur between mental states and the body. When the body touches something hot, a receptor in the skin detects a change in temperature and an effector acts in response to this temperature change by moving the hand