Descartes: Mind over Body - Essay Example

Descartes: Mind over Body. René Descartes (1596 – 1650), is considered to be the ‘Father of Modern Philosophy.’ He was born on March 31, 1596 in La Haye, near Tours in France. He received a Jesuit education, went on to study law, and served as a gentleman soldier, before devoting himself entirely to his studies. He was a towering intellectual, who combined the study of Mathematics, Science and Philosophy. He founded the branch of Analytical and Cartesian Geometry and pioneered many studies in Physics, particularly in the field of optics, including the sine law of refraction. However, in the twentieth century, it is his enduring legacy as a philosopher which is most well-known. His declaration, “Cogito ergo sum,” – ‘I think, therefore I am,’ is one of the most renowned lines in the history of philosophy. Over his lifetime, he published several works of Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy, including the Compendium of Music, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Discourse on the Method, The Geometry, Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy, and Passions of the Soul. Descartes spent the major part of his life in the Netherlands, and moved to Sweden in 1649, where he died of pneumonia the following year, on February 11. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). In 1641, Descartes published in Latin, and later in French, his Meditationes de prima Philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy), which is arguably his most popular work in contemporary times. Descartes intended the Meditations to be his exposition of metaphysics. He invited criticism from the foremost intellectuals of the period, and included their objections and his refutations in his publication. In his six meditations, Descartes broke away from the old, Aristotelian way of thought, mainly in his rejection of the reliability of forms and the senses. His path-breaking line of thought was the clear demarcation of the idea of the mind from the idea of the body. Descartes’ self-declared goal in writing his Meditations was to irrefutably prove “the existence of God --- (and) the real distinction between the human soul and body” (Meditations, Dedicatory Letter to the Sorbonne, paragraph 5). The subtitle of the Meditations explicitly reads, ‘in which are demonstrated the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.’ The principles of metaphysics, with which the Meditations are concerned, include Descartes’ elucidation on the nature of matter, God’s role in the creation and preservation of the world, the nature of the mind, the interaction between the mind and the body and the analysis of the senses. Descartes begins his argument in the first meditation by calling into doubt all his preconceived notions, and thus give himself total freedom in his search. This freedom from habitual belief advances his quest for the truth. Continuing to follow his method of doubting until reaching the truth, Descartes proceeds to the Second Meditation, which is devoted to ‘the nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body.’ He begins by presuming everything he sees to be false, and discounts his body, his senses and his memory. He assumes that “Body, shape, extension, movement and place are chimeras” (Med.2, section 24). Having eliminated the body and the senses, the only conviction which remains is that nothing is certain. The very fact that the mind convinces itself about something (uncertainty), is taken to be proof of the existence of the mind. This leads Descartes to the truth of his proposition that, “I am, I exist” (Med. 2, section 24), that is, ‘Cogito, ergo sum.’ He then goes on to delineate his definition of this ‘I.’ Descartes earlier conception of ‘I,’ includes the “mechanical structure of limbs” (Med. 2, section 25), which make up the body, and the nutrition, movement, sense-perception and thinking which make up the soul. However, it cannot be established beyond a doubt that ‘I’ possess all the attributes of a body – such as a definite shape, location and space, and the body is thus discounted from the definition of ‘What I am.’ Coming to the attributes of the soul, nutrition, movement and sense-perception are all characteristics which cannot take place without a body. So, the soul is also discounted from the definition of ‘What I am.’ It is only thinking which is independent of the body. Descartes thus reaches the conclusion that thought alone “is inseparable from me” (Med. 2, section 26). ‘I’ exist only as long as I think. He arrives at his definition of ‘I’: “I am --- only a thing that thinks” (Med. 2, section 26). Existence, thought and the mind have been established with certainty. ‘I’ is thought, intellect, mind and reason. Descartes next attempts to eliminate the human body, imagination and sensory perception from his definition of ‘I.’ However, he concedes that imagination and sensory perception are also parts of thinking. The clearest thinking is concerned with corporeal bodies. These corporeal bodies appear to be most distinctly perceived through the senses and through the faculty of imagination. Descartes now goes on to argue that, to the contrary, “even bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone” (Med. 2, section 34). He uses his famous example of a piece of wax to support this argument, and demonstrates that even physical things can be most clearly understood by examining them with the mind, and not through the senses or through the imagination. Descartes first examines the piece of wax, taken from a honeycomb, through his five senses. He perceives its properties through his sense of taste (sweet), smell (scent of flowers), sight (white colour, small size and comb-shaped), touch (hard and cold) and hearing (rapping sound). This sensory perception appears to give him a distinct knowledge of the body of wax. Descartes then takes the piece of wax close to a fire. On being exposed to the heat, the wax loses the sensory qualities which it earlier possessed and which defined it. It loses its taste, smell and sound, changes in shape, colour and temperature and increases in size. But, in spite of all these changes, it cannot be denied that the same piece of wax still remains. Therefore, we can conclude that the distinct understanding of the wax is not due to the senses, as the sensory qualities of the wax have been altered, but the wax remains the same piece of wax. Since the wax in its original form is the same as the wax in its later form, it can be concluded that the senses are not reliable in the examination and understanding of physical bodies. The true nature of the wax cannot be grasped through the five senses. The senses can thus be eliminated. After eliminating the senses, Descartes proceeds to consider the imagination as the source of understanding and knowledge. He considers the piece of wax to be a physical body which presents itself in various forms. Once the sensory characteristics of the body of wax are removed, what remains is “merely something extended, flexible and changeable” (Med. 2, section 30). The concepts of ‘flexible’ and ‘changeable’ can be understood to mean that the piece of wax is capable of countless number of changes in shape. All the possible changes which the piece of wax is capable of cannot be grasped by the imagination. Likewise, the concept of ‘extended’ can be understood to mean that the piece of wax is capable of countless increases in size, as it is subjected to greater heat. All the possible changes in size cannot be revealed by the imagination. As the imagination cannot grasp the infinite forms the piece of wax may take, it can now be concluded that the imagination is not reliable in the examination and understanding of physical bodies. The true nature of the wax cannot be grasped through the imagination. The imagination can thus be eliminated. Once the limitations of the senses and the imagination have been demonstrated, and both have been eliminated, what remains is pure reason. The essence of the wax, or its true nature, is the thing which remains even when other aspects of the body change. Descartes now concludes that this true nature of the piece of wax is “perceived by the mind alone” (Med. 2, section 30). A body is perceived through “pure mental scrutiny”. Understanding is a function of the mind and is independent of the senses and the imagination. The faculty of judgment exists only in the mind. The nature of the wax is judged accurately only by the mind, and the clarity of this judgment depends on the concentration devoted to its study. The senses and the imagination are diverted by the non-essential qualities of a physical body. It is only the mind which grasps the true essence of the wax. Descartes states that his perception of the true nature of the piece of wax becomes “more perfect and evident” (Med. 2, section 32), only when he goes beyond the limitations of both his external senses, and his imagination, or “common” sense. His perception becomes distinct only when he strips the wax of its external forms and judges its essence with the human mind. Descartes extends the argument about the piece of wax to further elucidate the understanding of his concept of the mind. Knowledge which is based on the senses is prone to error. Knowledge which is perceived by the senses can be truly grasped only when it is judged by the mind. Obviously, awareness of the self is more distinct than awareness of an external body, such as the piece of wax. The judgment that the piece of wax exists, whether that judgment stems from the sensory perception of sight or touch, or from the imagination, originates from the thinking mind. This proves that the mind exists, and this in turn proves that I exist. I exist because my mind judges the wax to exist. Anything which heightens the perception of the piece of wax, or any other external body, also heightens the perception of the nature of the mind. Descartes concludes that the best way to understand the true nature, or the essence, of physical bodies is through the inspection of the mind. Perception comes from the intellect and is based on understanding, and not on the senses or the imagination. In the Second Meditation, Descartes main objective is to irrefutably establish the existence of the mind and its intellectual nature, and to distinguish it from the body. He aims for a “distinct concept of the corporeal body” (Meditations, Synopsis, section 12), and uses this distinction to clearly distinguish the mind from the body. His argument about the piece of wax is very effective in this context. His choice is particularly apt, due to its changeable properties. By choosing a piece of wax as his example of a physical body, Descartes is able to clearly demonstrate that a body can change its physical attributes under various conditions, and continue to retain its true nature, or essence. The wax remains, but its sensory qualities change. Likewise, the wax remains, but the imagination cannot grasp all its possible changes. Therefore, Descartes shows that the true nature of the wax can only be grasped by the mind. Descartes example is successful in illustrating the distinction between the mind and the body. However, while he is successful in demonstrating that the senses and the imagination cannot, on their own, comprehend the true nature of a body, he does not completely succeed in his argument that the perception of a body is based on pure intellectual inspection. It is difficult to concede that a thing can be perceived “by the scrutiny of the mind alone” (Med. 2, section 31), or “by the intellect alone” (Med. 2, section 34), without the input of the senses or the imagination. After all, it is Descartes’ observation of the wax by his sensory perception which shows him that the piece of wax which he is heating is the same piece of wax which he had earlier. It can be acknowledged that a complete understanding comes from the intellect, after it has been freed from the limitations of the senses and the imagination. However, the senses and the imagination also play a role in this understanding. The senses and the imagination may be prone to error in their judgment, but they contribute to the perception of the mind in making its own judgment. Later on in the Meditations, Descartes concedes that “I am a thing that thinks --- and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Med. 3, section 34). He admits his certainty that “sensory perception and imagination, in so far as they are simply modes of thinking, do exist within me” (Med. 3, section 34). He concludes his Meditations with the admission that the nature of man is “a combination of mind and body” (Med. 6, section 88) and the mind and the body “form a unit” (Med. 6, section 82). The senses and the imagination are part of thinking, but it is only the mind which can exist independently of these faculties. In this context, using his example of the piece of wax, Descartes succeeds in his argument that true judgment depends on the strength of the intellect. Works Cited. Descartes, René. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” Smith, Kurt, "Descartes Life and Works", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Accessed on 13 March 2009 from Read More