Descartes Arguments for Substance Dualism - 2259 Words

Does Descartes provide a convincing argument for the claim that mind and matter are distinct substances Descartes’ Argument For Dualism In his Meditations Rene Descartes aimed to reconstruct the whole of science by trying to prove the distinction between mind and matter. He gives an argument from doubt, and another from conceivability. I will give a brief summary of the foundations Descartes builds his thesis on, and then looking at his arguments and whether they are capable of persuading us that dualism is a logical stance to hold. To what extent if any is Descartes successful in showing there is a real distinction between mind and body In Descartes’ Meditations, Descartes aims to reshape the whole of science by starting from†¦show more content†¦Thus Descartes premises are false and fail to convince us of substance dualism. 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: Similar to this is the Argument from Distinctness which argues for the logical possibility of separating mind from body. To do this, mind and body would have to be distinct and thus it would prove both things. - I can imagine myself as a thinking thing existing apart from the body (as shown by the different essences in the argument from essence.). - It is conceivable that a thinking thing can exist without a body - It is possible that a thinking thing can exist without a body - A thinking thing is not a body The first premise has some major issues if we refer back to our objections to the argument from essence. We came to the conclusion thatShow MoreRelatedFor Years, Philosophers Have Debated The Mind-Body Problem,1195 Words   |  5 Pagesphysical world. Philosopher Descartes believed in substance dualism, the belief that the mind and the body are two different things. In this essay, I will examine Descartes’ substance dualism theory. First, I will review Descartes’s theory and reasons that support it. Then, I will review objections with Descartes’s argument. After that, I will imagine how Descartes would respond to these objections. Finally, I will conclude with an overall assessment. Descartes’ substance dualism theory was formed inRead MoreThe Mind / Brain Identity Theory1718 Words   |  7 PagesDescartes’s Dualism of substances, which became one of the most lasting legacies in his philosophy. However, a scientifically stronger interpretation was advanced through the Mind/Brain Identity theory. Prior to discussing how Elliott Sober’s presentation of the Identity Theory is philosophically stronger than Dualism, I will begin by evaluating the philosophical perspective of Dualism; I will examine the distinction between mental and physical substance and assess the strengths of dualism. I will alsoRead MoreAnalysis Of Elisabeth s Criticism Of Descartes Mind Body Dualism1398 Words   |  6 PagesElisabeth’s Criticism of Descartes’ Mind-Body Dualism Renà © Descartes’ seventeenth century philosophy receives much of the credit for the basis of modern philosophy, specifically his argument that the body and the mind are completely separate substances, each with its own independence from the other, also known as dualism. Descartes was educated in the Aristotelian and Greek tradition, and those ideas influenced his dualist thought. In Meditations, Descartes focused on dualism in the context of humanRead MoreDescartes Dualism And The Mind Body Theory1322 Words   |  6 PagesDescartes’ Dualism Rene Descartes dualism states that the mind and body are separate entities. The mind is a nonphysical, non-spatial substance; the mind and brain are separate existences, the brain is a part of the physical body and serves as a connection between the body and mind. Dualism is a hot topic of argument on whether the theory holds any validity or if it holds any truth. However, Cartesian dualism is a credible theory and has a lot of support to verify it. One major point in DescartesRead MoreThe Mind Body Problem And Cartesian Dualism1024 Words   |  5 Pagesand Cartesian Dualism In this paper I will argue for Cartesian dualism to be the most plausible solution to the mind-body problem. Cartesian dualism argues that there is a two-way interaction between mental and physical substances. Renee Descartes, the creator of the theory, believed that a man consisted of matter, the physical things that walk and talk etc., and mind, the nonphysical substance (often correlated with the soul) that thinks, doubts, remembers, etc. The first argument in CartesianRead MoreThe Argument For Substance Dualism Essay1549 Words   |  7 PagesHighland Arguments for Substance Dualism In this essay, I will discuss and formally analyze the opinions in approval of substance dualism and conclude that substance dualism is without a doubt an accurate way of thinking. Firstly, it is important to describe what exactly what I mean by substance dualism. Basically, it asks a very menial question such as: what kind of thing is our mind? According to substance dualists aka Descartes, the mind and the body are composed of different substances and thatRead MoreDualism And Dualism Between The Mind And Body And Materialistic World Essay946 Words   |  4 PagesBoth monism and dualism, ideas debated amongst philosophers for centuries, involve trying to explain the relation between the mind and body, or if there even is such a correlation. A monist believes that a person is singular in their being. This means that monists do not distinguish the mind from the body, or even reality from the physical world, such as life after death (Schaffer 32). For a monist, reality is confined to the materialistic world. Oppositely, there is dualism. Though there are manyRead MoreThe Mind-Body Problem Essay957 Words   |  4 PagesRenà © Descartes and Thomas Nagel, have written extensively on the problem but they have many dissenting beliefs. Descartes, a dualist, contends that the mind and body are two different substances that can exist separately. Conversely, Nagel, a dual aspect theorist, contends that the mind and body are not substances but different properties. However, although Nagel illustrates the problems with Descartes= theory, Nagel=s theory runs into the problem of panpsychism. In this paper, both arguments willRead MoreRealism : Reality And Dualism1340 Words   |  6 PagesTeena Lin PHI 1500 Fall 2017 Final Paper Reality is Dualism There are currently four major theories about the nature of reality and substance— materialism/physicalism, idealism, transcendental idealism, and dualism. Materialism is the theory that there is only the physical and material world. Idealism takes the position that reality is made up of ideas and immaterial. Transcendental idealism holds the idea that our experience of things are shaped by how they appear to us and not by what they areRead MoreThe Problem Of Separation And Dualism1399 Words   |  6 Pagessuggests a problem of separation and dualism. Dualism shall be claimed, it is an intuitive position; it offers an explanation of the mind and body in terms of substances (Descartes, 1641) or properties (Strawson, 1959), in which the mind is somehow considered as a non-physical thing, thus separated from the physical world. In contrast, a rival view is that there are only physical things, hence there is no separation between mind and body as suggested by dualism, and that t he mind is most accurately