Descartes Sixth Meditation Argument Analysis

Among Descartes’ many notable arguments, in the Sixth Meditation he makes a case for the real distinction between mind and body. This idea that mind and body are distinct was not common during Descartes’ time and conflicted directly with the popularly accepted scholastic view of the human being as a hylomorphic substance. The argument of the Sixth Meditation draws on much of Descartes’ own work concerning substance, attributes and distinction. In this paper, I will argue that he arrives at the conclusion that mind and body are in fact distinct by a categorical syllogism, focusing primarily on defending the minor premise that mind and body can be conceived as separate. I will begin by outlining Descartes’ position on matters of substance
He states that one can understand the mind to exist separately from the body. The middle term of the argument, as noted in the major premise is the separate understanding of two things, and he presents the idea of mind and body as the minor term. Descartes devotes a larger share of the argument to defending the minor premise, perhaps because the idea of body and mind as separate substances is more controversial than a general notion of separate substances as distinct. He goes on to expound not only the idea that the mind and body are separate, but that the essence of the human being lies in its nature as a thinking thing. As thought is the essence of the human being, and the principle attribute of the mind is thought, the mind can therefore be seen as more fundamental to humans than the body. Descartes acknowledges that it is likely for a body to be joined to the mind, however he maintains that one can still conceive of both body and mind as separate substances. And as the essence of the body is extension rather than thought, it is fundamentally less relevant to a thinking
Although he does not direct the argument considered in this paper against any one philosopher or school of thought, in the Principles of Philosophy he presents his understanding of substance as antithetical to that of the Scholastics, who believed that substance applied univocally to God and creatures. As his understanding of substance is essential to this argument, the difference is reflected throughout it as well. While for Scholastic thinkers the human being was essentially a hylomorphic substance, Descartes posits that the mind and body thought to make up a human being are in fact distinct substances, and the human essence is tied more closely with the mind