Descartes Philosophy of Mind and Soul - Essay Example

? Descartes Philosophy of Mind and Soul Thesis ment The mind is distinctive from the body it attached to, hence unlike, and if they are unlike then definitely they cannot be the same. However, it still has further to go, it needs to show beyond doubt that they are different. Background of Descartes’ Mind and Body Theory In the scholastic tradition Descartes reacted against it is assumed that the world is as we perceive it. Aristotelian-scholasticism elucidated phenomena in relation to qualities, causes and effects. As regards to this, magnet’s trait or characteristic of attracting iron were stated in terms of the magnet having the quality of 'magnetism'. The cause of the 'magnetism' is the magnet. This form of circular causal reasoning would have had been insufficient for Descartes and it is in this context of a world that is founded on such archaic Aristotelian principles that he meditates the cogito. Descartes wanted knowledge derived from natural science to have the clear and distinct properties of mathematical and geometrical concepts. Descartes presents his method in The Meditations. In order to evaluate its significance to his own philosophy it is imperative to demonstrate how he reaches the conclusion of the cogito. In order to build a proper epistemic approach to knowledge Descartes asks us to suspend our beliefs in propositions whose truth it is possible to doubt even in the slightest. As Descartes advances through the first meditation, our principles for acknowledging reality are elevated ever higher as he demolishes the capacities of recollection and the senses and even rationale in this respect. He presents three skeptical arguments to fortify doubt, the dream argument, the interventionist creator-God and the imperfect creator/imperfect creation arguments. Discussion and Analysis The first argument, the dream argument says that there is no definite way to discern between when I am awake and when I am dreaming therefore, it is possible that I am dreaming right now and hence that all of my perceptions and sensations are false. It can be said against this that dreams are often hazy and are surreal with an unusual and we can always tell if we are able to dream. But for every notion we have of defining a boundary between dreams and being in a state of awakeness. One other problem with the dream argument as an argument for universal doubt is that it does not cause problems for self-evident 'truths' such as mathematical and geometrical concepts. To introduce the hyperbolic doubt Descartes needs to arrive at the cogito he must conceive of an argument that would make mathematics and logical validity dubitable. In order to do this he conceives of God as an all-powerful creator. Because of the omnipotence of God it is possible for Him to disrupt the truth of ideas we perceive as distinctly and clearly such as tautologies and analytic mathematical propositions. The first objection against this argument is that some people would not believe in a God that had sufficient power as to remove the certainty from clear and distinct ideas. Descartes reasons out of this problem by arguing that if our creator-God is less than perfect then we have even more reason to doubt because of our origins from an imperfect being. The other problem from this rebuttal is that assuming that there is a perfect God then it would be contradictory to his perfect being to deceive us. Another point, a God who deceives could have created our minds so that they could we can always have frequently or indeed always, have false thoughts. Accordingly, when we are calculating 2+2=4 and believing it to be self-evident we could be suffering an intervention from an omnipotent God to trick us to believing. It would seem that Descartes has now called even reason itself into doubt. By showing all knowledge is dubitable in the first meditation the significance of the Cogito for Descartes becomes clear. What if Descartes would be able to offer a cognitive principle that would remain intact when put under the scrutiny of his triumphant of doubt? In the Galilean age Descartes was writing in mathematical knowledge was the paradigm of certainty and so if Descartes' unfolding hypothesis proved to be more certain than math it would be a powerful method of assessing surety and would lead to a reform of the natural sciences. Descartes asks is there anything we cannot doubt and concludes, with great circularity, that we can only be certain that there is nothing but uncertainty in the world. If we can find one foothold in knowledge, one point of surety like Archimedes' point we could 'move the globe' or unlock truths from the chains of doubt. According to Descartes, ‘If I believed that I exist, then I necessarily have to exist, because anything that believes or doubts necessarily exists. Therefore if I believed that I exist, then my belief would have to be true.’ In fact, he is contented that his Cogito is unquestionable and so has now put in position a preliminary point from which knowledge can be acquired. There are criticisms that can be made of the Cogito but it is not within the remit of this paper to explore them properly since we judge the Cogito only in its significance for Descartes system. Destroying skepticism is not Descartes' primary concern for formulating at the Cogito. Now that the meditator has an 'Archimedean Point' it is important to see how the meditator can derive more knowledge from the cogito. This is the real significance of the Cogito for Descartes system. How does further knowledge originate from one point of truth? Firstly, it can be said that the method leading to the Cogito is the method of finding certainty itself affirmed by the finding of the one certain hood of the cogito. In order to find truth the method to find the original truth could be employed again. The original point of truth can also be used as a postulate is used in logic and maths. One of the problems of the Cogito is that although it can be branched of as a point of truth for the building of further true knowledge it is problematic in that it appears to resemble a dead end in terms of the way we hold knowledge. Essentially the Cogito puts us into a position where we can only hold that we exist at the precise moment we think or doubt. This knowledge is both subjective and temporary when what Descartes would prefer is knowledge all can participate in. To enhance the Cogito he reasoned out his rule of Clear and Distinct Ideas. Put simply the rule extends the reason of the Cogito. If I cannot doubt that I am then I can clearly and distinctly perceive that the belief that I am is true. Descartes found that he was able to doubt that any of his perceptions corresponded to the corporeal world in which they appeared i.e. he could imagine that nothing he perceived was true. Indeed he could doubt that he is part of this reality, a reality which is based on material objects, he could also doubt the fact that he had a body and yet he could not conceive that he did not exist, whatever 'He' may be. "I saw that I could conceive that I had no body and that there as no world nor place where I might be, but yet that I could not for all that conceive that I was not" (Descartes, 14) Descartes says that although he can imagine that he has been deceived, that not all he believes is true; that he can doubt everything that society takes to be fact. There must still be a 'he' to be deceived. This is then applicable to every individual. I can conceive that I am mealy hallucinating and this world which I take to exist could infect be nothing more than a construct of my imagination, as imagination is surly unbounded, and yet there must be an 'I' to imagine. There must be an 'I' to be deceived. I must therefore exist. Descartes has now constructed a foundation from which he can build his arguments. This is known as the cogito. Descartes’ proofs for the valid peculiarity of mind from body are named the following: The argument from doubt The argument from clear and distinct perception The argument from simplicity The argument from doubt Descartes continues from the cogito as follows "...if I had merely ceased thinking even if everything else I had ever imagined had been true I should have no reason to believe that I existed. From this I knew I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think, and which does not require and place, or depend upon and material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly this 'I' - that is to say the soul by which I am what I am - is entirely distinct from my body, and indeed is easier to know than the body, and would not fail to be whatever it is, even if the body did not exist." (Descartes, 127) It seems to me that Descartes is saying that he knows he exists, this he cannot reasonably question, for when he does finds it absurd. However he can question whether his body exists with out coming across any such absurdity. He therefore concludes that the mind is, that is the 'I', must be distinct from the body and so can exist without it. To summarize: (P1) Descartes is sure he is a thinking thing, a mind (P2) Descartes is not sure he is a physical thing, a body (C) Therefore Descartes is not a physical thing The two premises (P1 and P2) are clearly true (at least to Descartes) and yet the conclusion doesn't follow. For he says he is certain that he is a thinking thing and he is certain that is either is or isn't a physical thing, therefore he isn't a physical thing. However we cannot say this for sure as the possibility that we are both thinking and physical things remains. I feel that this argument is not a complete one and the ambiguities need to be clarified. The argument from clear and distinct understanding Descartes says that 'all things that I clearly and distinctly understand can be bought about in the manor I apprehend them, all be it by god'. He then goes on to say that the fact that he can obviously and markedly comprehend that his mind could exist independently from his body, even if it requires god to do so, and so they are really distinct. And therefore "I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it" (Cahn, 482) The argument needs the ground that one can obviously and markedly recognize that the mind could survive independently from the body. Descartes asserts "I can clearly and distinctly understand the possibility of A and B existing apart from each other if: there are attributes e.g. thought and extension, such that I clearly and distinctly understand that thought belongs to the nature of A (my self) and extension to the nature of B (my body)." "...and I clearly and distinctly understand that something can be a complete thing if it has thought even if it lacks extension." (Wilson, 92) Descartes is saying is that if an object C has both the properties D and E, then you could conceivably separate C into parts A and B, if: A holds the property D but not E and B holds the property E but not D. This then transfers to Descartes in C being the union of mind and body, or rather our body and mind as one. He then says that this union (call it a person) has both thought and extension. The possibility that this person can be separated into the parts A and B (mind and body) if part A has the property D (thought) but not E (extension) and B has the property E but not D . We then need to ask our selves whether the mind has property D but not E i.e. is the mind thinking and unextended thing. He then says if he can conceive that A and B can exist separately, then god could bring it about that they exist separately and so the two must be really distinct even if they exist, at the moment, as a whole. But this is dependent upon the fact that we clearly and distinctly understand the mind to be a thinking and unextended thing. The argument from simplicity Descartes argument from simplicity is that the body is divisible into parts, for if a person looses a foot or an arm they don't cease to be who they were, or rather the 'self' remains. Where as the mind cannot be split into parts, it cannot be separated, it is indivisible. Or at least so says Descartes "...there is a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body by its very nature is always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any parts within myself. I understand myself to be something quite signal and complete." (Cottingham, 151) Descartes' view that the mind isn't divisible and so can't be extended may be questioned as far as the mind can be thought of in sections, for example, you could categorize thoughts into emotions, beliefs, perceptions etc. could these not be the components of the mind which make up the whole? These too can be categorized; e.g. emotions could be categorized as love, hate, joy, jealousy, anger, and fear. Therefore, is the mind not divisible? Is it a complete thing in its self? Descartes responded to this with the following "as for the faculties of willing, of understanding, of sensory perception, and so on, these cannot be termed parts of the mind, since it is one and the same mind which wills, and understands and has sensory perceptions." (Cottingham, 151) This implies that the minds 'parts' are not separate from the mind as a hole, as they couldn't exist without the mind, i.e. you cannot separate emotions from the mind, as without the mind you cannot emote. It is my opinion that understanding or emoting is a function of the mind as running is a function of the body, and yet you cannot separate running from the body as without body you cannot run. This to me would imply that the mind is indivisible and yet that is to assume that the mind is to begin with, separate from the body. Take, for example, people who have had car accidents where by they are left with brain damage, this damage has left the individual inquisition with certain defects. Say, for example, that this person has lost the ability to express emotions. The mind is divisible for if the mind is the brain then there could be a section that deals with emotions and so could be separated from the mind as a hole. This would mean that emoting isn't merely a function of the mind but a section of it. From clear and distinct understanding - this argument is not successful in that it requires you to have a clear and distinct understanding of the mind as a thinking and unextended thing. From simplicity - this argument succeeds where the others fail in showing that the mind is different from the body, however this again requires you to accept the fact that the mind isn't the body. Conclusion Descartes concludes that if something is clearly and distinctly perceived then it too must be true. This enhancement of the Cogito is problematic in so far as that the terms of what qualifies as 'clear' and 'distinct'. These are relative words and highly subjective, what one person may understand 'clearly' may not be as well defined to someone else. Descartes relies on God to guarantee the truth of clear and distinct ideas. He uses the clear and distinct rule in his first proof of Gods existence. Put simply if I can conceive of an infinite omnipotent and perfect God then since I am imperfect and temporal then this idea must have been 'caused' by this God. A cause is as real as its effect therefore God exists. This constitutes a form of circular argument: God Exists therefore God guarantees clear and Distinct Ideas therefore I clearly and distinctly conceive of God therefore God exists. There are bodies and material things that are spatial and temporal and there are minds that are pure thought and not composed of any material thing. Descartes comes to the realization that almost nothing is certain in this world. He very quickly establishes the fact that the only science or discipline that displays certainty is that of mathematics. The idea of relativism is the idea that truth is not absolute, and all criteria of judgment are relative to the individuals and situations involved. Unfortunately for his quest for certainty, he, in a round-about way, proves that there is almost no certainty in the world. There are many truths that lie in the eye of the beholder, much like beauty. Every person perceives the world around them differently according to their senses and experiences. In his Discourse, Descartes never finds certainty of his own, but does rattle the foundations of truth that had been established for that time. Descartes recognized that conviction of his own existence by tracing it impossible to doubt the fundamental basis of doubting. To him, doubt itself is a logical reasoning of existence. Doubt stands first and foremost argument for existence. Since the very effort to doubt would be to assert the place of the one who doubts. This is the most confident constituent of philosophical way of thinking. Work Cited Cahn, M. Steven: Classics of Western Philosophy: Hackett Pub Co; 7 edition (June 30, 2007), 482 Cottingham G. John, Western Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies) Wiley-Blackwell (November 13, 1996) 151 Descartes, Rene The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 1, Cambridge University Press (August 30, 1985), 127 Descartes, Rene. Discourse on the Method: Focus Publsihing/R. Pullins Co. (April 17, 2007) 14 Wilson, Margaret Dauler: Ideas and mechanism: essays on early modern philosophy: Princeton University Press (February 8, 1999) 92 Read More