Rene Descartes Cartesian Dualism Essay example - 1625 Words

Descartian dualism is one of the most long lasting legacies of Rene Descartes’ philosophy. He argues that the mind and body operate as separate entities able to exist without one another. That is, the mind is a thinking, non-extended entity and the body is non-thinking and extended. His belief elicited a debate over the nature of the mind and body that has spanned centuries, a debate that is still vociferously argued today. In this essay, I will try and tackle Descartes claim and come to some conclusion as to whether Descartes is correct to say that the mind and body are distinct. For one to begin the quest into Descartes’ dualism, one must first look at the argument of the real distinction. In Descartian thought, the â€Å"real distinction†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦For Descartes, this means that a substance is really distinct from anything else other than God whom Descartes credits as the creator of such an object. The ramification of such a principle leads Descartes to believe that the mind and body could exist completely separately of one another, allowing that God chose to create them in this particular way. Despite this, the possibility that the two could exist separately does not mean they actually do. This is an issue of its own entirely. The clarity of the real distinction argument may be blurred by Descartes himself. His numerous uses of the argument in a number of his books may lead the reader down an aisle of confusion. Despite various versions of the argument, it is important to understand that Descartes does not consider different arguments under the same title but simply approaches the same argument in a number of different forms. For this reason alone, I will focus on but one of the formulations postulated by Descartes. One may first look at the argument contained within Descartes’ book Meditations on First Philosophy. In the sixth meditation Descartes states â€Å"On the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and canShow MoreRelatedThe Theory Of The Mind Body Dualism1232 Words   |  5 PagesRenà © Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher of the 16th Century, who, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, â€Å"was one of the first to abandon scholastic Aristotelianism and created the first version of the modern mind-body dualism or emotion† (Encyclopedia Britannica). Born on March 31, 1596, he was dubbed as the Father of Modern Philosophy. 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