The Problems Of Dualism In Ou Descartes: The Problem Of Dualism

1303 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Descartes ideas about mind and body

Liang Zhou
Student No.200314592
Philosophy 100
Due date: 3/30/2015
The problem of dualism Descartes proposed that the mind which represents thinking, and the body which represents mechanism are totally distinct-a thesis is called mind-body dualism. He believes the nature of thinking substance which cannot not be extended is completely different from the body which can be extended, and therefore it is possible for one to exist without the other. Some examples can prove that the mind could exist without body such as persistent vegetative state, zombie and some nature physiological response. However, mind-body distinction is a controversial problem today as people may say: normally, the movement of our bodies are controlled by our minds such as writing exams and so on. Therefore, the mind and the body do have interaction in …show more content…

A category-mistake arises when things or facts of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another. According to Ryle, "the logical type or category to which a concept belongs is the set of ways in which it is logically legitimate to operate with it."(Ryle, lx). For example, a friend is invited to visit my home, after being shown the garden, dining room, bedroom, balcony and family members, he will still ask "where is your home?". This would be a category-mistake because the home is not an entity over and above the people and property, it is the people and property. Another example would be if someone were to say his sadness is long, but sadness is a emotion which cannot be said that it is long. Two citizens who pay taxes belong to the same category but the average taxpayer does not. As long as the citizens continue to misunderstand the average taxpayer they will think of him as some peculiarly additional taxpayer. Ryle points out that the mind-body dualism is an illusion produced by this type of misuse of ordinary

Show More
Related

  • An Examination of the Second Meditation of Descartes

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Descartes Body Vs Mind Dichotomy

    2004 Words  | 5 Pages

    Rene Descartes uses the Skeptical method to re-examine everything he knows and form concrete beliefs in the process. In some of his meditations he touches on the body verses mind dichotomy. First, the “body” and “mind/soul” need to be differentiated. Rene Descartes and Simon Blackburn lace definitions of these two entities through their writings. In his second meditation Descartes briefly discusses the difference between the mind and body. Descartes notes that he pulled this thought from his old, misguided days, but it is still useful for defining these two terms, as it gets the essence of difference between them. He writes, “I had a face, hands, arms, and the whole structure of bodily parts that corpses have – I call it the body. The next belief was that I ate and drank, that I moved about, and that I engaged in sense perception and thinking; these things, I thought, were done by the soul” (4). Basically, the main activity of the body is movement and sustenance, while the mind is used for sensing and thinking. Blackburn calls him a substance dualist. He further explains this distinction in discussion Descartes dualism, “thoughts and experiences ate modifications in one kind of stuff; movement and position belongs to the other” (51). The body’s basic function is movement and the mind’s basic function is sensing – one is tangible, while the other is

    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

  • Analysis Of René Descartes

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    This same line of reasoning is used to describe the body and mind’s essences and necessary properties. A thinking thing can exist with it’s sole essence being thought and other modifications(modes) of thought such as affirming and denying, willing and unwilling. According to Descartes the mind is conscious and non-extended, whereas the body is extended but not conscious. Descartes uses these essences as evidence that the mind and body are two completely different things that essentially have nothing in

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Meditations By Rene Descartes

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conjunction with this theory, any matter is known through the mind. This reasoning was used as a basis toward the dualism of the mind and body. The mind is a thinking entity. It has the ability to imagine, dream, and ultimately encompass the aspects that are not fundamentally matter. The body exists outside the mind. It is the connection to the external world based on the scientific properties of mass, size, shape, and motion. Descartes argues that the mind is distinct from the body. The mind thinks and does not have scientific properties. One’s body is a non-thinking thing. This distinction leads Descartes to conclude that the mind is not the same as the body. There is no characteristic that is categorized as both mind and body; the body can be changed, the mind cannot. In continuation, the mind can exist without the body and the body can exist without the mind since each thing is distinct. Descartes later explains how the brain is not the same as the mind. The brain is the connection between the mind and body in a human being. Descartes argues that matter cannot be the same as anything mental. The mind is affected by the brain, providing one with insight into the external world. Also, the mind can influence the brain, hence one’s body being controlled by the mind. However, it is possible for the brain to cease functionally and the mind to still operate. Essentially, one can conclude that the

    Read More

  • Descartes' Theory of Substance Dualism

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    existed in life, the physical and the nonphysical. He broke his theory of Dualism into two

    Read More

  • Effects Of Overpopulation In Prisons

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    The overpopulation in the prison system in America has been an on going problem in the United States for the past two decades. Not only does it effect the American people who are also the tax payers to fund all of the convicts in prisons and jails, but it also effects the prisoners themselves. Family members of the prisoners also come into effect. Overpopulation in prison cause a horrible chain reaction that causes nothing but suffering and problems for a whole bunch people. Yet through all the problems that lye with the overpopulation in prisons, there are some solutions to fix this ongoing huge problem in America.

    Read More

  • Mind Body Dualism

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    Descartes continues the distinction in the Sixth Meditation, where he observes the body is by its nature divisible where the mind is completely indivisible. Descartes knows his body and mind are unified although, when something is cut off from the body such as an arm, nothing is lost from the mind. The body is a physical substance that can be described by quantitative qualities like size, shape and extension. Allowing for it to be divided into parts, for example a cake like the body has a certain size, shape and dimensions that can be divided into multiple smaller sizes. The mind is a qualitative substance that cannot be divided, such as smell; there cannot be half or a quarter of a smell. The mind is not an a corporeal or extended substance like the body therefore it is not capable of being divisible. Since the body and the mind do not share the same property of being divisible or indivisible the mind and body are distinctly different. Descartes claim for mind body dualism can be seen as false, I will argue that the m...

    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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Cartesian Dualism and Gilbert Ryle

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    two distinct kinds of entities, bodies and minds (1). All objects that exist or can exist belong to one of these categories. The two forms are said to be mutually exclusive and commonly defined by fundamentally different characteristics, yet both are required to accurately define the world around us. According to Descartes, the body is a tangible physical substance (the unthinking thing), whereas the mind is an intangible non-physical substance (the thinking thing) and comes metaphysically before the body (3). The mind and body casually interact with one another while maintaining their distinctiveness: the eyes perceive objects and then focus the image to the pineal gland, where it transmits the information to the non-physical mind; the mind then may transmit a signal to the body, telling it what to do. The mind and body are independent from one another, yet they work in harmony; the mind receives signals from the body and the body responds to signals from the mind.

    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

  • Descartes: Relationship Between Mind and Body

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • History of Psychology

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    While the great philosophical distinction between mind and body in western thought can be traced to the Greeks, it is to the influential work of René Descartes, French mathematician, philosopher, and physiologist, that we owe the first systematic account of the mind/body relationship. As the 19th century progressed, the problem of the relationship of mind to brain became ever more pressing.

    Read More

More about The Problems Of Dualism In Ou Descartes: The Problem Of Dualism

Open Document