Descartes Mind-Body Debate
The mind-body debate works to answer the following question: What is the bond between the mind and body? Descartes claims: “the fact that I can vividly and clearly think of one thing apart from another assures me that the two things are distinct from one another - that is, that they are two.” This notion of the mind and body claims humans to have both physical properties (the body and brain) and mental properties (the mind). The physical properties being: sensation, reproduction, movement, etc., and the mental properties involving: consciousness, experience, and desires that are controlled by the self.
This bond between the non-physical and physical also raises the question: How can the two interact and be able to have voluntary movement and …show more content…
Dualism is the view that the mind and body both exist as separate entities, arguing that there is a two-way interaction between mental and physical substances. This view is therefore known as substance dualism.
Descartes’ drive, and reason for the importance of this issue, is possibly to have the opportunity of life after death and to give the issue some mathematical manifestation of the physical world. But then again, because mental properties can’t be conveyed in such a way (arithmetically), Descartes claims there are two separate substances in the world: physical and non-physical. And if these two substances were able to exist apart, then our mind or soul can live without the body; life after death. The following excerpt from Descartes’ Meditations of First Philosophy defends the idea:
“Furthermore, my mind is me, for the following reason·. I know that I exist and that nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing; from this it follows that my essence consists solely in my being a thinking thing, even though there may be a body that is very closely joined to me. I have a vivid and clear idea of myself as something that thinks and isn’t extended, and one of body as something that is extended and does not think. So it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it.”
This bond between the non-physical and physical also raises the question: How can the two interact and be able to have voluntary movement and …show more content…
Dualism is the view that the mind and body both exist as separate entities, arguing that there is a two-way interaction between mental and physical substances. This view is therefore known as substance dualism.
Descartes’ drive, and reason for the importance of this issue, is possibly to have the opportunity of life after death and to give the issue some mathematical manifestation of the physical world. But then again, because mental properties can’t be conveyed in such a way (arithmetically), Descartes claims there are two separate substances in the world: physical and non-physical. And if these two substances were able to exist apart, then our mind or soul can live without the body; life after death. The following excerpt from Descartes’ Meditations of First Philosophy defends the idea:
“Furthermore, my mind is me, for the following reason·. I know that I exist and that nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing; from this it follows that my essence consists solely in my being a thinking thing, even though there may be a body that is very closely joined to me. I have a vivid and clear idea of myself as something that thinks and isn’t extended, and one of body as something that is extended and does not think. So it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it.”