Descartes and Dualism - Term Paper Example

Descartes and Dualism One of the major questions still strongly debated in philosophical circles is the relationship between the mind and body. This question has proven so difficult that it has developed into its own field of inquiry called dualism. This is because of the way that it divides human experience between what happens in the mind as compared to what is experienced by the body. This question has become more complicated in recent years as ‘virtual reality’ became an actual possibility and as new science continues to raise doubts as to whether such a division can occur. Essentially, the mind/body problem centers on trying to determine what constitutes 'real' experience. It is clear that the mind can fool the body into thinking it is experiencing something. Examples of this are found in the experiences of people with lost limbs or psychosomatic illness. However, the body can also fool the mind into experiencing something, such as in the case of false scents, misperceptions or vertigo. It is necessary to investigate the theories of Descartes any time one is researching dualism because it was Descartes who first suggested the body and mind could be divided and he who began to define the proper realms of the mind as compared to that of the body. The more these ideas are researched, though, the more they seem to fall apart. Dualism is the result of an attempt by Descartes to bring the discipline of mathematics with its basis on ‘real’ factual knowledge together with the more intangible concepts of thought. His attempt is characterized by a categorical rejection of anything that could not be externally proven. This method is now referred to as hyperbolic doubt. Regarding this method, Burnham and Fieser say “he refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers – but he also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a foundation for philosophy, whatever could be doubted must be rejected. He resolves to trust only that which is clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt. In this manner, Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth.” Up to this point in history, mathematical concepts had not been applied to the school of philosophic thought because the formalist paradigm of the Socratic-Platonics denied any possibility of empirical knowledge. “On this view, sensory experience can inform us only about appearances, about how things seem. Authentic knowledge (episteme), however, must be of reality. The idea of empirical knowledge, that is, experiential knowledge, is thus intrinsically incoherent. The provenance of knowledge proper, that is, knowledge of the eternal and independent Forms, is reason alone. With regard to the world available to us through the senses, the world of appearances, we can aspire only to opinion (doxa)” (Rosenberg). According to the formalist paradigm, then, there is no means by which a mortal human being can access the epistemic knowledge Descartes sought simply because we do not have the appropriate capabilities required to understand what it is we are seeing/experiencing at this level. To accomplish the type of evidence he required, Descartes applied four basic rules of logic to his process of discovery to use as guides and method. The first rule applied was that he could only accept truths that were 'clearly and distinctly' known to be true. The second rule employed was to reduce problems down to their most common elements. This enabled the philosopher to tackle them each as micro problems which could then contribute to solving the macro. The third rule was to proceed in logical order from the easiest solution to the most difficult so as to reduce the weight of issues being considered. The fourth and final rule was to take a broad view of each individual micro-problem in order to be sure nothing has been missed at the macro level. As Brians comments, “He calls into question everything that he thinks he has learned through his senses but rests his whole system on the one truth that he cannot doubt, namely, the reality of his own mind and the radical difference between the mental and the physical aspects of the world.” Through the application of this carefully outlined, systematic and highly logical thought process to the process of thinking itself, Descartes developed his theory that mind and matter are not one and the same thing, thus creating dualism. The linkage of thought to standard mathematical methods of analysis can be clearly traced through the creation of these four rules. Although his most famous statement, "I think therefore I am" presented in his second meditation, rests greatly upon the sense that he is still thinking, the very fact that this sense continues to exist separately from the other bodily senses is proof enough for Descartes that there must be something in existence to realize the sense is being felt. Therefore he, as an independent thinking entity, must exist because he is still able to sense that he is thinking something unique to him rather than being caused by some external factor. The simple summative statement that has become a catch phrase for the philosopher's thought is actually the result of a long internal discourse in which Descartes applies his four core principles of thought to carefully and analytically reject all of the knowledge he’s gained throughout his lifetime and as he sat contemplating these questions. It is a result of his sense that he didn't have a direct knowledge of himself and his conviction that he must have this in order to consider himself a fully aware human being. “It is some time ago since I perceived that, from my earliest years, I had accepted many false opinions as being true, and that what I had since based on such insecure principles could only be most doubtful and uncertain; so that I had to undertake seriously once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted up to then, and to begin afresh from the foundations” (Descartes 42). Throughout this questioning process, much of which is recorded in his Meditations, Descartes concludes that the only way to truly know something is through careful and deliberate thought rather than simple observation. Through the application of the logical questioning process, Descartes demonstrates how thought rather than observation is actually the only right foundation for knowledge. “When I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams” (Descartes, 2001). As this statement proves, Descartes' idea of discovering truths about the world was defined by whether he had a clear and distinct perception of them. Through his logical process, he determined that this distinction was sufficient for knowledge. However, the idea that knowledge can be defined by a “clear and distinct perception” is flawed by its own dependence on the senses as a basis for knowledge. He establishes both that the senses cannot be trusted and that the only clear and distinct knowledge is discovered as a sense. Assuming that what he is able to perceive as distinct must be true, Descartes strives to erase his mind of all information that has been gained as input from one of his five senses in order to arrive at a truth that can be discovered deep within himself. In setting up this line of reasoning, he establishes the ‘proper’ realm of the mind as something different from and perhaps opposed to the realm of the body. The realm of the mind is truth or knowledge while the realm of the body is sensation and perception. After rejecting all of the information he seems to know about the world because it has all come to him through one of his senses, the only thing Descartes remains sure of is that there is something within him that can be informed, rightly or wrongly, by these senses. He reasons that in order to fool a mind, a mind must first exist. “But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something” (Descartes, 1989). This is the conclusion that finally led to the now-famous line “I think, therefore I am” that is at the heart of the dualism question. Descartes' reasoning also seems to suggest that the mind is something that can transcend the physical functions of the body through the central nervous system and thus gives comfort and credence to those who felt that the soul must be able to transcend death still a full representation of the individual who died. From the discussions within philosophical circles that followed Descartes' publications of his meditations came the various branches of thought regarding what made up the human spirit and just how this was connected or disconnected with the human body. “Descartes’ influence in philosophy cannot be underestimated. The epistemic foundation, presuppositionless systems, the mind/body problem, and the subject/object relationship are issues that haunt philosophy to the present day. In one fell swoop, Descartes split apart you and the external world. Much of later philosophy is spent trying to get these two together somehow” (Davis 1997). In the years that followed Descartes' studies, the Empiricists worked to deny any kind of nonmaterial realm “and they denied Descartes’ assertion that there is a distinct substance existing independently from the senses or from the physical world. The Materialists argued that the universe is nothing more than matter in motion moving through space. They maintained that the mind is nothing more than a process of physical phenomena just as breathing and defecating are natural processes, and that there is no warrant for asserting the ‘soul itself’ as existing independently in some realm” (Woolston 2004). There are several other forms of thinking about thought and its relationship to the body as well. Although it would seem like a self-defining term in many cases, pluralism has muddied the waters of understanding in several fields. Carson identifies three general categories of pluralism broken down as empirical pluralism, cherished pluralism and philosophical pluralism. Empirical pluralism refers to the central physical realities of American society in which there is a great deal of protected diversity within American society while cherished pluralism refers to the cultural sense of pride Americans take in this sort of diversity in believing themselves to be the only ‘free’ nation on earth that permits such individualism. It is, however, the third category of pluralism that Carson takes into serious question, the concept of philosophical pluralism. It is this form of pluralism that gave rise to the concept of deconstructionism, which holds that there are no right or wrong answers, only different ways of looking at things. “The only absolute creed is the creed of pluralism. No religion has the right to pronounce itself right or true, and the others false, or even (in the majority view) relatively inferior … In particular it is bound up with the new hermeneutic and with its stepchild, deconstruction. The outlook that it spawns is often labeled postmodernism” (19). Pluralism is basically the concept that all meaning is based upon the interpreter’s understanding. In other words, the author of a text has little to no control over the final understanding of the text as meaning will vary depending upon the individual who is reading it. In examining this piece of logic, which seems to make sense on the surface as it is true that individuals bring their own understandings to a given work, Carson points out that for it to be universally true, it must also be accepted that individuals may be capable of understanding a text based upon what the author intended. In other words, pluralism must also be relative, meaning it has different and sometimes even no weight in given situations and can thus be dismissed. The only other option is that the concepts of pluralism are objective, which contradict the very tenets upon which it is founded. By thus calling into question the certainty of pluralism, which is an idea that has seemed to have taken the world by storm, Carson illustrates the various ways in which this concept has served to break down the basic meanings Western society once held dear and sacred. The contextualist recognizes a dual nature of knowing in which the same statement may be true and false depending upon the context in which it is used, which makes it sound similar to pluralism and dualism but contains the important distinction of acknowledging more than one truth can be present at a time yet truth is present. Because it is true sometimes, contextualism is a means of answering skepticism, in which it is held that we lack any knowledge. By considering the context in which the statement is uttered, there are many ways in which it might be understood to be true on some level of understanding. However, the assertion that there is a need to provide context both confuses and fails to fully answer the concerns of the skeptics on the philosophical level even when the statements are true on a more common level. In addressing the relevance of contextualism to skepticism in epistemology, Sosa lists the four basic types of thresholds that must be defined in order to fully answer the skeptics' concerns regarding belief. These include “’belief’: how sure must one be? … ‘justification’: how much rational support is required for one’s belief? … ‘reliability’: how reliable are one’s operative sources or faculties? … ‘safety’: how easily might one have been wrong?” (6). Many of these questions, of course, place the conversation, again, in the realm of contextualism even on a philosophical plane. This also illustrates the degree to which contextualism can be applied to such an extent that all meaning is rendered meaningless and the skeptics are reinforced in their argument. Instead, Sosa proposes that all knowledge exists on a continuum of thresholds that change for a variety of reasons and contexts and knowledge itself is something that we attain to but never reach as contexts and information continue to change or be defined. We base our feelings of knowledge, then, on a degree of safety that what we believe is actually true. The problem with this is that, even given all the information we have available to answer the various factors described, we may still believe something to be true and thus be real knowledge when it is false because one of those variable factors is either false or has become false through accident or fluke. Metaphysics relates to the inner essence of things, the spirit. Within this field, discussions of the mind-body problem are related to the concepts of dualism and alternatives to this idea that have been proposed in recent years. The concept of physicalism, for example, which holds that the soul does not exist because humans are completely physical entities, is introduced and overwhelmed by a substance dualism point of view in which it is held that the mind and body are separable (Moreland and Craig). It is within the philosophical realm of metaphysics that the question of free will and determinism is addressed as is the question of what occurs after death. This includes discussion of the ideas of determinism, compatibilism and libertarianism. While determinism claims that human actions are always brought about by previous conditions and is therefore proof that free will does not exist, libertarianism is offered as its direct opposite in its suggestion that humans do act on their own free will at least occasionally. Compatibilism provides a sort of middle ground between these two ideas suggesting that individuals may choose to act in the correct way providing them with free will to choose it and a pre-determined path they should follow. This provides the argumentation and background necessary to make a case that life after death is possible because the majority of the individual personality is not based upon the physical body but is instead housed within an immortal soul which survives the death of the body. All of these ways of thinking are held against the concepts of monism. Monism is a term that refers to essentially any philosophical viewpoint that suggests there is unity in any given field of questioning where it may not otherwise be expected. An example of this line of thinking include asserting that the universe is a single entity in spite of our awareness that there are planets, stars, gases, comets, creatures and all kinds of things occurring within it. Within philosophical circles, it typically refers to the concepts of God in the various religions in which everyone is seeking their reunification with the higher power of their choice. Within Christianity, this can also mean belief in the single God who is also known to be at least three entities - the father, son and holy spirit. However, the monism of Christianity is complicated by its similar assertion that God is not a part of His creation but is instead something greater than and different from it. Rather than being pieces of God walking around, believers are instead a part of his creation and must therefore respect and honor God as something of much more significance and power. Perhaps the clearest and most straightforward monist belief system can be found in the Hindu religion, with its pantheon of gods, because the Hindu tradition holds that everything in existence is all a manifestation of a single energy known as the Brahman. According to Jeffrey Brodd, the nature of Brahman is at once transpersonal, personal and impersonal, offering multiple paths to the same source. Thus, even in this system, there is a confusion of divisions and partings that suggests they are both possible and impossible all at the same time. Even in Descartes own writings, there is evidence that the mind and body cannot be fully divided without both suffering a fundamental loss within the experience of the individual. Even Descartes found he must rely on sense, a process of the body, before being able to determine that the mind must exist. Thus, even within his own philosophy, Descartes seems to prove the impossibility of dualism. In order to become aware, the mind must receive information in the form of senses from the body, but in order to make sense, these senses must have a mind to interpret and organize them into meaningful blocks of information. Common sense and recent science demonstrate that Descartes’ conclusions that the mind may be able to transcend the functions of the body must be false. The mind is unaware of anything until the sensations of the body provide it with the information necessary to formulate thought. This is perhaps best illustrated through the function of dreams. Whether dreams have meaning or not is irrelevant to this discussion, but what is relevant is that the language of dreams is always tied to the physical experiences of the individual. A person who has never experienced the image of an elephant will have a very difficult time dreaming of one. They may be able to dream of a large grey animal, but this animal will tend to take on characteristics and features of other animals that they have seen either in real life, in picture books or had described to them in some degree of detail. At the same time, it is the body’s perception of what is large, the eyes perception of what is grey and the mind’s understanding of what is an animal that come together to create the image. The mind and body function together as an integrated team in which neither can be separated from the other. The mind depends on the body to give it information while the body depends on the mind to give it direction. Works Cited Brians, P. “Rene Descartes: Discourse on Method.” Department of English, University of Washington, (December 19, 1998). Web. May 17, 2011. Brodd, Jeffrey. World Religions. Winona, MN: Saint Mary's Press, 2003. Print. Burnham, D. & Fieser, J. “Rene Descartes: 1590-1650.” The Internet Encyclpedia of Philosophy. The University of Tennessee – Martin, 2006. Web. May 17, 2011. Carson, D.A. Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. Davis, W. The Rene Descartes Project. Covenant College, 1997. Web. May 17, 2011. Descartes, R. Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. John Veitch. New York: Prometheus Books, 1989. Print. Descartes, R. Discourse on Method. Vol. XXXIV, Part 1. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, (2001). Web. May 17, 2011. Moreland, J.P. & William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downer Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003. Print. Rosenberg, J.F. “Descartes’ Skeptical Argument.” Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy. Vol. 1, (1998), pp. 209-32. Print. Sosa, Ernest. “Skepticism and Contextualism.” Philosophical Issues. 10, Skepticism. 2000. Print. Woolston, C.S. “Rene Descartes: Mind vs. Body.” Dynamic Deism, (November 21, 2004). Print. Read More