Analysis Of Rene Descartes Dualism And Materialism

Philosophy is a widely debated field of study because there are many prominent philosophers and theorists, each with their own individual perspective on the way that humans and the world work. For this reason, it is difficult to satisfy every question and concept. Where consciousness, the body, the mind, the nature of the mind, and their connections are concerned, there are two prominent schools of thought: dualism and materialism. Dualists believe that the body and the mind are two separate elements. Materialists believe that this is not the case. These dueling theories inspire the inquisition: which theory clearly explains the nature of the mind and the way it works? In short, materialism is the more adequate of the two

Rene Descartes, an

The mind-body problem is a sort of paradox that involves the causal relationships between the mind and the body and produces a plethora of existential questions. If the mind is separate from the body as Descartes says, why is something physical, like the body, able to produce an effect on something nonphysical like the mind or consciousness? How can something mental produce an effect on something physical? How is it possible for a person to decide to raise their arm in their mind, and then for their arm to physically rise up if the body and the mind are indeed separate? Some answers to these questions may be found in materialistic thinking. Materialism is a philosophical school of thought that encompasses the way the mind, body, and consciousness are actually parts of one whole being. It is well described in philosopher John Searle’s work Mind: A Brief Introduction. Searle writes about many materialistic theories that counter the Cartesian dualism theory. These theories connect the mind and the body through the relationships between the brain, its functions, the mind, and its awareness of the world in ways that Cartesian dualism

First, it violates Leibnitz’s Law, which fundamentally states that if any two things are identical, then all of their properties must be in common. If there were mental states with properties unique from brain states and vice versa, then the identity theory would be disproved. The mental state of having pain in one’s hip, for instance, would have to be false, since the brain state that correlates with the hip pain is in the brain (not the hip) and is not the same as the mental state. Moreover, the human body is a system. Therefore, some things, like hip pain, would not be solely located in the brain. Secondly, it does not account for awareness. The theory adheres to the idea that consciousness can be expressed through various physical states of the brain, but awareness cannot really be expressed or determined physically because it is not physical. Thirdly, the question is raised that if mental states are indeed just brain states and can be “reduced” to as such, what happens when one has a mental state that cannot be reduced to its brain state? This would render the argument invalid because the mental state is irreducible (Searle,