Descartes's Idea Of Mind-Body Meditations On First Philosophy

Moreover, Descartes relies on having a thorough knowledge of mind and body. We may conclude with Descartes that thought is necessary to having a mind, and materiality is necessary to having a body, it does not inevitably follow that there is an entity whose sole nature is to think. Descartes is limited by his subjective viewpoint that it could not be the case that extension could be another property of mind. He needs to prove the stronger argument that it is not possible for the mind to have extension as one of it’s properties. Descartes tries to make this proof in his Divisibility Argument:

As a result, Descartes believes the mind cannot extend like the body. Descartes uses a result that was made in the second meditation, “But what kind of a thing? As I have just said – a thinking thing,” (18) to make the claim in the sixth meditation, “For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing…” (59) and as a result the mind, according to Descartes, is not identical with the body. Conscious, is another basis for Descartes’ argument. Consciousness is presented in the second meditation where Descartes states the mind is a thinking thing. He can conclude that the mind has a conscience while the physical body doesn’t have a conscience so again, the mind and body are not identical.

Descartes’s first, and arguably most important deduction, is that he must exist, even if nothing around him does. He deduces that “it necessarily had to be the case that I, who was thinking this, was something” (Descartes 18), leading him to his famous axiom “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes 18). Even if his senses, his prior knowledge, and anything about his physical body and life are a fabrication, his mind itself must exist. This crucial discovery is the basis of Descartes’s philosophical musings. Descartes takes this single, certain fact and expounds upon it to “confirm” that the soul, God, and many other things certainly exist outside of his mind. Concerning things outside of his mind, Descartes determines that “they are not something I have fabricated; rather they have their own true and immutable natures” (Descartes 88). Using triangles as an example, Descartes reasons that they have “a certain determinate nature, essence, or form which is unchangeable and eternal, which I did not fabricate, and which does not depend on my mind” (Descartes 88). Concerning his body itself, Descartes reasons that his mind and body are tightly joined; “when the body is in need of food or drink, I should understand this explicitly, instead of having confused sensations of hunger and thirst” (Descartes 98). By determining that things such as his body and surroundings did in fact exits outside o f his mind, Descartes can start to “confirm” what he believes to be the true nature of God by his A priori

Descartes’ argument for the mind and body being distinct is that they individually possess the power to exist without the need for the other. Even if they seem to coexist in some ways, Descartes argues that the mind and body are really distinct because they are able to be conceived by him, and God is able to create that clear and distinct conception. Thus, creating the means to be sufficient to be apart from one another. As stated by Descartes, Firstly, because I Know that all which I clearly and distinctly conceive can be produced by God exactly as I conceive it, it is sufficient that I am able to clearly and distinctly conceive one thing apart from another…” Descartes’ notion of “really” being distinct falls under his terms of “substances” and “modes”. A mode can be considered a trait of the substance and a substance only exist with the help of God. While the mode requires a substance to exist, the substance has no requirements other than God. For example, being a “pyramid” shape the “mode” of the extended “substance”, but the stone of the pyramid without any particular shape can exist without the need of other traits. It can exist by itself without requiring other matters. Therefore, Descartes is making the claim that each substance, the mind and body can exist individually of each other if God really wanted to.

My purpose in this paper is to explain and clarify Descartes’ view of mind, also called “Cartesian dualism” by René Descartes, widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy (Newman 2014) in the middle of the seventeenth century. Lavelle (2014) concludes that Descartes thought that the mind is distinct from the body and that the mind must be made of a fundamentally different substance to that of the body and other things found in the physical world. Descartes’ argument is expressed by Lavelle (2015, p. 40) through ‘argument from doubt’.

Man is not merely an animal, but rather a body and soul that lives forever. This is an idea that took centuries to develop, and one that still conflicts the great thinkers of our time. Descartes, who ushered in the modern age of philosophy and who is arguably the greatest questioner of Aristotle, develops his ideas on the mind body duality throughout his first six Meditations. Explaining the essential characteristics of thinking things in contrast with those of physical things, Descartes makes it clear why the mind cannot simply be the brain and why, although we physically are present, our essence, our existence, is not linked with our physical self. Descartes arguments, however well crafted

“What therefore did I formerly think I was? A man, of course. But what is a man?” (Descartes 340). This question that Descartes addresses in Meditations on First Philosophy is important because it outlines his core philosophical view in his work. His philosophy primarily focuses on dualism, which is the concept that there is another world that exists with ideal forms and is separate from the world of perception. The part of dualism that Descartes focuses his work on is the distinction between the soul and the body. His perception of what makes up a person is that the soul and the body are two separate entities. More specifically, he believes that the body only exists as a consequence of the soul. These ideologies are applicable to the advancement and understanding of life today because although people naturally evolve through time, the essence of an individual remains the same; every person is born with a soul that thinks and a physical body with a head, neck, trunk, arms, hands, legs and feet. Therefore, through Descartes’ reasoning in his work, he was able to address the question of dualism and clearly illustrate that there exists a difference between the soul and the body. His ideas still remain relevant because he did not rely on principles of his time to draw conclusions, allowing scientists to utilize his work as a foundation for research to help better understand the world.

Descartes’ argues that the mind is distinct from the body, with the reason that the mind and the body are differing in their essence. In Meditation Six, Descartes notices several differences between the mind and the body’s essence. He claims that the mind has the essence of thinking, and that it is “utterly indivisible”, which therefore makes it not extended also, whereas the body does not have the essence of thinking, and it is extended due to it being “always divisible” (Meditation Six 6). In other words, Descartes believes that the body takes up

The Mind and Body Descartes’ argument in his Sixth Meditation, focuses primarily on the mind and body. He argues that the mind and body are two different things. Descartes arrives to this conclusion simply by the concept of divisibility concerning the mind and the body. Before he reached to the conclusion that divisibility is the thing that makes the mind and body different, he first reaches to the idea that there are material things and non-material things. The non-material things he would call thoughts, material things would be anything that takes up space.

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes introduces the dualistic idea of a sharp split between mind and body. This mind-body split is a Western secular idea and discounts many important aspects of the human experience. Descartes argues that, “…a body, by its very nature, is always divisible. On the other hand, the mind is utterly indivisible” (Descartes, 56). This idea that there is a distinct difference between the mind and the body is nonsensical from both a phenomenological and a scientific perspective. Furthermore, it is a very privileged point of view. Descartes was first and foremost a scholar. Before dedicating his life to philosophy, he worked with analytic geometry and analytics. In many ways, Descartes was spared experiences that might have caused him to reassess his thoughts on the split between mind and body. Unlike the example of the man with an amputated foot that Descartes uses in Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes did not lose a limb. If he had, he may have realized that the mind is just as divisible as the body, as is the case with traumatic experiences. Based on the theoretical possibility that Descartes is wrong, it follows that mind and body are essentially the same. This can be seen through a cognitive perspective of human experience, and in particular, the application of modern neuroscience.

The next task that Descartes must consider is to define what he is, and in doing so be careful not to make assumptions. He cannot consider himself to be an animal, since that would require a definition of what an animal is. Such an examination is beyond the discussion. (25) Instead of making random guesses, Descartes begins to think about what came to mind when he considered what he was. (25, 26) The first thought that occurs to him is that he has a body - something that by definition has a determinable shape, defined location and that can occupy space. However, if an all-powerful deceiver is at work, then that which

He argues, “If something is conceivable, then it is possible.” Descartes believes that whatever is perceived as separate can be created by God as separate. Once humans understand that the nature of their mind is non-extended and a nonmaterial substance distinct from the material, extended body, they are able to distinguish between mind and body. With the understanding of the distinct concepts between themselves/their minds and bodies, there are able to be certain that they are distinct from their bodies and can exist without them. Descartes continues his argument with the claim, “If it is conceivable that I exist without a body, then I can exist without a body.”

In conclusion, Descartes states that as a person with a mind he is not identical to his physical

In the Meditations, Rene Descartes attempts to doubt everything that is possible to doubt. His uncertainty of things that existence ranges from God to himself. Then he goes on to start proving that things do exist by first proving that he exists. After he establishes himself he can go on to establish everything else in the world. Next he goes to prove that the mind is separate then the body. In order to do this he must first prove he has a mind, and then prove that bodily things exist. I do agree with Descartes that the mind is separate from the body. These are the arguments that I agree with Descartes.

He still however, claims that the body is his own because of three reasons. The first being that he is unable to get away from his body. He cannot leave his mind in one place and his body in another. At this point of time Descartes also believes that the pineal gland is where the mind resides in the body. When he sees other people that have bodies they are able to walk away from him and be in a further off place and not affect him.