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Describes ideas of the mind and body
Describes ideas of the mind and body
Essays on descartes meditations
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René Descartes is known for being the ultimate doubter. He believes that nothing we experience is trustworthy, because our senses do not show us the truth, and we don’t have the physical traits to observe the truth. From this he concludes that everything he experiences is inaccurate. Yet, he finds that there must be existence within him. This is because he sees a distinction between the physical world, and the non-physical world.
Within Descartes Meditations, he explains the fundamental differences between the mind and the physical world. The distinction is that matter is an unthinking, doubtable, and extended substance, meaning it extends in space. Whereas the soul is a thinking and unextended substance that cannot be doubted. My thoughts do not take up space, do not have a mass, and cannot be divided, unlike matter. Descartes concludes that mind and body are two distinct things, as the mind could exist without a body, and a body without a mind. Even if my body were to be only a product of my senses alone, I know for a fact that my mind, or soul, must exist in this universe.
This leads to Descartes’s belief that he must exist. Because he has the ability to think he exists, that proves he has something of existence in at least the non-physical world. “I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world – no sky, no earth, no minds, and no bodies. Doesn’t it follow that I don’t exist? No, surely I exist if it’s me who is convinced of something,” (Norman 341). This existence in the non-physical world is accessed through his mind. Furthermore, because he has the capacity to be deceived by his senses, he therefore must exist. Thought is the only factor necessary for existence. If I am a thing that “doubts, understands, affi...
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... as screen brightness, I still have the understanding that it is the same computer with the same form. Even though my mind, which is thinking of these words, is independent of the fingers typing them up, they are still interacting in order to write this paper. With this physical essay, I can then share the realities happening in my mind across the physical world, and into the mind of another person, the reader. Because of this interaction between extended and unextended substances, humans can influence each other’s thoughts and exist together in both realities. Without this interaction, we would not have the beauty of what we call a “human”, a being that can exist in both realities share our ideas in order to make progress towards the understanding of the truth.
Works Cited
Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.
This idea begins the philosopher’s ongoing discussion on the body and the mind. The first thing he must do is prove he exists beyond a doubt. Descartes declares, “If I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed” (4). This idea rests on the ability of his mind, if he did not actually exist, he would not be have any sort of mental activity. From this early point in the text, Descartes foregrounds the superiority of the mind. As Blackburn puts it, “he is forced to recognize that his knowledge of his self is not based on knowledge of his embodied existence” (20). For Descartes, the ability the think defines the self (the mind/soul)– he cites thought as the one thing that cannot be separated from him. He believes if he stopped thinking he would stop existing. His ability to think sustains him, at this point in his meditations he is only a mind, his mental existence is the only thing he has
Rene Descartes meditations on the existence of God are very profound, thought-provoking, and engaging. From the meditations focused specifically on the existence of God, Descartes uses the argument that based on his clear and distinct perception that cannot be treated with doubt, God does exist. In the beginning of the third meditation, Descartes proclaims that he is certain he is a thinking thing based on his clear and distinct perception, and he couldn’t be certain unless all clear and distinct perceptions are true. Before diving into the existence of God, Descartes introduces smaller arguments to prove the existence of God. For example, Descartes introduces in his argument that there are ideas in which he possess that exists outside of him. Utilizing the objective versus formal reality, Descartes states “If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me, either formally or eminently, and hence that I myself cannot be its cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing which is the cause of this idea exists” (29). In other words, the ideas of objective reality that resides in Descartes can potentially only come from a supreme being, which is God; God possess more objective reality than he does formal reality. We as humans, as Descartes states, are finite substance, and God is the only infinite substance. The only way for us as a finite substance to think of an infinite substance is possible if, and only if, there is an infinite substance that grants us the idea of substance in first place. After these smaller arguments, Descartes states that while we can doubt the existence of many things, due to the fact that ...
The first step in rationalizing that your mind is separate from your body is to understand that you exist; that you are real. To prove that you actually exist, you must first entertain the thought “I don’t exist.” Since you are entertaining your thought, it’s real; therefore, if you’re thinking a real thought, you are real, too. There’s no way to doubt something, because the act of doubting makes you a doubter, which in turn makes you real. In the same way that thinking makes you a thinker. This is also known as Descartes famous dictum “logito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore, I am.” This suggests that we are “thinking things” or what Descartes refers to as “Res Cogitans.” Hence, you are your mind and not your body, and you can certainly exist without your body.
Descartes’s approach to understanding the difference between mind and matter initially began by him doubting all truths which he had grown up believing to be true. He believed that if anything he held to be true was ever deceiving, he would reject its reliability all together. This extreme doubt resulted in Descartes
He distinguishes between the mind and the body, or the thinking and extended substances. Through his musings, Descartes proposes that the “self” refers to only the soul or the mind, not the body. “It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it” (115). He can doubt the fact that his hands are moving, but he cannot doubt the fact that he is
In the second meditation, Descartes is searching for an Archimedian point on which to seed a pearl of certainty. By doubting everything in his first meditation, Descartes consequently doubts his own existence. It is here that a certainty is unearthed: “If I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed”(17). However, Descartes “does not deduce existence from thought by means of syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind,” or in other words, by natural light (Second Replies:68).
In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes makes a point that there is a distinction between mind and body. It is in Meditation Two when Descartes believes he has shown the mind to be better known than the body. In Meditation Six, however, he goes on to claim that, as he knows his mind and knows clearly and distinctly that its essence consists purely of thought. Also, that bodies' essences consist purely of extension, and that he can conceive of his mind and body as existing separately. By the power of God, anything that can be clearly and distinctly conceived of as existing separately from something else can be created as existing separately.
Through Descartes’s Meditations, he sought to reconstruct his life and the beliefs he had. He wanted to end up with beliefs that were completely justified and conclusively proven. In order to obtain his goal, Descartes had to doubt all of his foundational beliefs so that he could start over. This left Descartes doubting the reality of the world around him and even his own existence. In order to build up to new conclusively proven and justified true beliefs, Descartes needed a fixed and undeniable starting point. This starting point was his cogito, “I think, therefore I am.” In this paper I will argue that Descartes’s argument that he is definite of his own existence, is unsound.
According to Descartes, “because our senses sometimes deceive us, I wanted to suppose that nothing was exactly as they led us to imagine (Descartes 18).” In order to extinguish his uncertainty and find incontrovertible truth, he chooses to “raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations (Descartes 59).” This foundation, which Descartes is certain to be the absolute truth, is “I think, therefore I am (Descartes 18).” Descartes argues that truth and proof of reality lies in the human mind, rather than the senses. In other words, he claims that the existence of material objects are not based on the senses because of human imperfection. In fact, he argues that humans, similarly to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, are incapable of sensing the true essence or existence of material objects. However, what makes an object real is human thought and the idea of that object, thus paving the way for Descartes’ proof of God’s existence. Because the senses are easily deceived and because Descartes understands that the senses can be deceived, Descartes is aware of his own imperfection. He
Outline and assess Descartes' arguments for the conclusion that mind and body are distinct substances.
Descartes believes God exists and plays a key role in his belief that he is a thinking thing residing in a material world. God’s existence is an innate idea we are born with. This idea explains how our clear and distinct reasoning leads us towards knowledge. Descartes believes God to be a perfect being, so he cannot deceive us. Since he has a perfect knowledge and supplies us with truth in this world, we must believe we reside in a material world.
Descartes’ first two Meditations are arguably the most widely known philosophical works. Because of this, one can make the error of assuming that Descartes’ method of doubt is self-evident and that its philosophical implications are relatively minor. However, to assume this would be a grave mistake. In this paper, I hope to spread light on exactly what Descartes’ method of doubt is, and how, though it furnishes challenges for the acceptance of the reality of the external world, it nonetheless does not lead to external world skepticism.
One of the ways in which Descartes attempts to prove that the mind is distinct from the body is through his claim that the mind occupies no physical space and is an entity with which people think, while the body is a physical entity and cannot serve as a mechanism for thought. [1]
Descartes argues that the mind and body can be thought of as separate substances. Descartes writes “I have a body that is very closely joined to me, nevertheless, because … I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, insofar as I am merely a thinking thing and not an extended thing and because … I have a distinct idea of a body, insofar as it is merely an extended thing and not a thinking thing, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it” ( Descartes 50). With this quote, Descartes is saying that the mind and body are separate because he has two distinct ideas of the body and the mind and the body is not a thinking thing as he is but an extended substance. Another point to Descartes argument is that the mind and body are different due to one being indivisible and the other being divisible. Descartes writes “a body, by its very nature, is always divisible. On the other hand, the mind is utterly indivisible” (53). Here is saying that there are ...
Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher believed that the origin of knowledge comes from within the mind, a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. His Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641) contain his important philosophical theories. Intending to extend mathematical method to all areas of human knowledge, Descartes discarded the authoritarian systems of the scholastic philosophers and began with universal doubt. Only one thing cannot be doubted: doubt itself. Therefore, the doubter must exist. This is the kernel of his famous assertion Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore I am existing). From this certainty Descartes expanded knowledge, step by step, to admit the existence of God (as the first cause) and the reality of the physical world, which he held to be mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind; the only connection between the two is the intervention of God.