Summary Of René Descartes Divisibility Argument

Dividing and Dismantling Descartes’ Divisibility Argument
In this paper, I will be discussing René Descartes’ Divisibility Argument in support for the idea of substance dualism. Descartes first presented this argument during the sixth meditation within his philosophic treatise, “Meditations on First Philosophy.” After making a series of assumptions and providing his argument via three premises, he concludes that the mind and the body can indeed exist apart. I intend to step through each of Descartes’ assumptions and premises, analyze them, and question their validity to expose the weakness in his argument. In addressing this weakness, I will conclude that Descartes’ arguments are not sufficient to establish the divisibility of the mind and
There initially seems to be no reason to disagree here; I can, in fact, place my hand on my chest and feel the steady beating of my heart. Because of this, I know that bodies are physical in nature and concede the point to Descartes. When I observe A2, I find the whole statement to be particularly unsatisfactory. At first thought it is rather difficult to try and imagine what something that has no physical nature really is. Furthermore, how can this non-extended thing interact with something extended, like my body? In short, it cannot. Newton teaches us, through his laws of motion, that no physical body can be influenced by anything except by another physical body. I find it important, here, to point out that the size of the physical body matters not, and can be observed all the way down to the atomic level. Operating under these widely-accepted laws means there is no way for the mind and body to causally interact with each other. We know, however, that we can indeed think and that those thoughts do influence how our bodies act. For example, after a long Sunday morning run, I might be sitting down next to my water bottle and desire a drink from it. My brain sends impulses into my arm, muscles then contract and, thus, I move my arm over, flip the lid, and take a drink. This mind-body causal process could not be possible if the mind were not an extended thing, therefore, it must be an extended thing– the brain. Here we begin to see Descartes argument crumble upon its foundations. We will hereby refer to this argument as At. Let’s consider how Descartes would respond to an argument like