Rene Descartes: The Dualism Of The Mind And The Body

Nowadays, it is believed that the body is the most important aspect of human beings. This is shown in today´s culture with things from clothes to enterprises. Oppositely, in the scene from “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back”, Yoda tries to explain Luke that he must not judge him by his size, that this is meaningless, and that in spite of the fact that he is small and seems weak he is capable of doing anything thanks to the “Force” which he controls with his mind, which may also be compared to the soul as will is attributed to it. This leads to the dualism of the mind and the body analyzed by René Descartes or even to the soul and body dualism found in Plato´s writings. However, it must be considered the question of whether they are

Plato argues that they have different origins and essence. “(…) as long as we possess the body, and our soul is contaminated by such evil, we´ll surely never adequately gain what we desire (…) [66b].” Besides the clear difference recently exposed, Plato also sustains that the body can be deceived, but the mind cannot: “(…) be achieved most purely by one who approached each object with his intellect alone as far as possible, neither applying sight in his thinking, nor dragging in any other sense to accompany his reasoning; rather, using his intellect alone by itself and unsullied, he would undertake the hunt for each reality alone by itself (…) [66a]” He also explicitly sustains that the body and soul are separated entities and that death separates one from each

Provided that the mind is prone to error and the body was already proven to be prone to error too, it can be argued that this aspect is shared by both but expressed differently; consequently, it can be said that human being is prone to error, and every single substance that composes him share this