Descartes Views - Coursework Example

of the In Descartes’ view, what do souls minds do? How does his elimination of lower soul functions influence his understanding of animals? René Descartes was a French philosopher, scientist and mathematician who lived from 1596 to 1650; he is at times referred to as the father of modern philosophy. It was his opinion that labor is essential for human subsistence. He also believed that labor differed from primitive food gathering and small-scale hunting as it involved the manufacture and use of tools and weapons. These implements resulted in a new relation between mankind and nature. This relation developed over a period of time and in his opinion an age of mass production would come when the human tool users would be deprived of their unity with nature. Further, he opined that these tool users would withdraw from nature and manipulate it in order to change it into the other, the other of spirit. Moreover, these tool users tend to view nature as a material or gross system of interacting things without any spiritual connotations. Such a world-view, according to Descartes, comprises of mind body dualism. However, a contrary animistic view based on Aristotle’s philosophy was generally accepted in the Middle Ages. This view believed that heavy objects fall towards the earth as they desire to be with other heavy earth-bound objects. On the other hand fire rises due to its home being located amongst the immaterial celestial objects. The philosophy of Rene Descartes helped to establish Dualism in the seventeenth century: ...because, on the one hand, I have a clear and distinct idea of myself in so far as I am a thinking being, and not extended (i.e., occupying volume), and on the other hand a distinct idea of body, in so far as it is only an extended thing, and not one that thinks, it is certain that I am in reality distinct from my body and can exist apart from it. (Descartes, Meditation II) However, dualism had existed even before Descartes philosophy, albeit in a less formal manner. Its advent was with the invention of disciplined labor. It was believed, prior to the “emergence of labor in the agricultural and herding revolutions, that nature was enlivened with spirit and soul-life.” Furthermore, the food gatherer was convinced that nature was independent. Such primitive belief that nature has a soul resulted in attempts to control it by resorting to magical formulas. However, man became a tool user and in this process he began to analyze actions on the basis of cause and effect. The result was that man used rational thinking to perform his tasks and soon came to realize that knowledge is power (Prehistory, n.d). Despite his several great achievements, Descartes never proposed any conclusive theory about the nature of the soul and its relationship with the body. It can only be surmised that he believed in the existence of causal interactions between events taking place in the body and those taking place in the soul. Furthermore, Descartes philosophy of mind reflects all theories proposed before him and addresses all the viewpoints that had been propounded. Descartes was quite aware of the fact that he had left incomplete what he had undertaken in the Treatise of man and that he had failed to create a single all encompassing mind body theory. Descartes was wont to get annoyed if reminded about this lacuna and would reply “how can the soul move the body if it is in no way material, and how can it receive the forms of corporeal objects?” and said that “the most ignorant people could, in a quarter of an hour, raise more questions of this kind than the wisest men could deal with in a lifetime; and this is why I have not bothered to answer any of them. These questions presuppose amongst other things an explanation of the union between the soul and the body, which I have not yet dealt with at all” (Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch 275). Sometimes Descartes, almost accepted failure and stated that “The soul is conceived only by the pure intellect; body (i.e. extension, shapes and motions) can likewise be known by the intellect alone, but much better by the intellect aided by the imagination; and finally what belongs to the union of the soul and the body is known only obscurely by the intellect alone or even by the intellect aided by the imagination, but it is known very clearly by the senses. […] It does not seem to me that the human mind is capable of forming a very distinct conception of both the distinction between the soul and the body and their union; for to do this it is necessary to conceive them as a single thing and at the same time to conceive them as two things; and this is absurd” (Cottingham, et al 227). Descartes hypothesized that external motions affect the peripheral ends of the nerve fibrils, which in turn displace the central ends and that such displacements result in the rearrangement of the pattern of interfibrillar space, resulting in the flow of animal spirits to the right nerves. This led to the founding of reflex theory. Detailed discussions of the metaphysical split between the mind and the body were described in Descartes’ De homine. His opinion was that the rational soul, which was different from the body, joined the body at the pineal gland. He further stated that this may or may not gain awareness of the differential outflow of animal spirits engendered by the rearrangement of the interfibrillar spaces. Moreover, if such awareness took place, then the result was conscious sensation or an example of the body affecting the mind. Further, wherever voluntary action is involved, the soul itself might initiate a differential outflow of animal spirits and this would be tantamount to the mind having an affect on the body. Descartes’ most important contribution to psychology is his Les passions. This work consists of an analysis of primary emotions, a detailed description of the causal mind body interaction and the meeting of the soul and the body in the pineal gland. Descartes accorded this esoteric role to the pineal gland because he was of the opinion that it was the only organ in the brain that was not bilaterally duplicated and also because he thought that the pineal gland was to be found only in humans. Descartes made epistemology the starting point of philosophy. Moreover, his conjecture regarding the souls contact with body in the pineal gland, focused attention on the relationship of the mind to the brain and nervous system. However, Descartes’ assumption that the body was extended and that the mind was pure thought resulted in intellectual chaos (Wozniak, 1995). Descartes’ attached great importance to the pineal gland as he attributed to it an important role in sensation, imagination, memory and the motor functions of the body. It was Descartes misfortune that many of his anatomical and physiological assumptions were wrong. Therefore, Descartes believed that the pineal gland was suspended in the middle of the ventricles. Further, he thought that the pineal gland was filled with animal spirits supplied by numerous surrounding arteries; this was proved to be incorrect as the Pineal gland is surrounded by veins and not arteries. Finally, Descartes believed these animal spirits to be “a very fine wind, or rather a very lively and pure flame” (Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch Volume 1: 100) and as “a certain very fine air or wind” (Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch Volume 1: 330). Descartes thought that the pores or gaps in between the tiny fibers comprising the brain widen due to the flow of animal spirits through them. Due to this he felt that figures may be “preserved in such a way that the ideas which were previously on the gland can be formed again long afterwards without requiring the presence of the objects to which they correspond. And this is what memory consists in” (Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch Volume 1: 107). Finally, Descartes presented an account of the origin of bodily movements. He was of the opinion that bodily movements result from the movements of the pineal gland and like he had done in perception, Descartes used the “term ‘idea’ again to the flow of animal spirits from the pineal gland”(Descartes and the Pineal Gland, 2006). Descartes was of the opinion that animals do not have a mind and this proved to be harmful not only to philosophy but also to science. This situation was rectified to a certain extent by David Hume who theorized that animals can think (Mind Body Problems, 1993). However, it was opined by Descartes that animals are akin to machines and that this conjecture was vindicated by the fact that animals are excellent only is specific tasks as opposed to the capability of humans who are in general able to cope up with any task. Moreover, this difference is clearly exhibited by the use of language by humans (Interpretation and Understanding, 2003). In addition, he believed that some animals like oysters and fungi were too imperfect to have souls or the capacity to think and that the only communication possible for animals was to indicate anger, fear, hunger, etc (Descartes’ Dualism, 1995). To conclude it can be stated that Descartes was of the view that humans are clearly different from animals and that language and reason, which humans possess, bring about this distinction. He also believed that animals were little better than machines, albeit with more complicated mechanisms. Works cited Baker, Gordon P and Morris, Katherine J. Descartes’ Dualism. December 1, 1995. Routledge (UK). ISBN: 0415101212. P. 4 Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., Murdoch, D., 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. 2 vols., Cambridge. Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., Murdoch, D., Kenny. A. 1991. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol III.: The Correspondence, Cambridge. Dascal, Marcelo. Interpretation and Understanding. September 29, 2003. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN: 1588114147. P. 481 Descartes and the Pineal Gland. Oct 9, 2006. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. October 31, 2006. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/ Massey, Gerald J. Mind – body Problems. June 1993. Vol 15, p S97 Prehistory and "Paradise Lost", October 31, 2006. http://www.ipfw.edu/phil/faculty/Butler/Intro/PART2PrehistoryCopy.PDF Wozniak, Robert H. 1995. "Mind and Body: Rene Déscartes to William James". October 31, 2006. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Descartes.html Read More