Since the publication of the Discourse on Method, Renés Descartes seems to have become the poster child for the position of mind/body dualism. Throughout the Discourse and his later works, Descartes posits several arguments in favor of the absolute distinction and, therefore, separation of mind and body. The position is not simply that mind and body have different properties, but that they are entirely different substances. In this essay, I will aim to outline Descartes' main arguments and assess their strength in relation to modern critical approaches. It sometimes seems, however, that these modern responses obscure the arguments presented by Descartes himself; Charitable interpretations, while they may generate more acceptable claims, are often unhelpful when it comes to discussing the validity and merits of the arguments that Descartes himself puts into words. Ultimately, I will seek to support the argument that although the work of Descartes' critics has brought to light hidden premises, thus making his arguments valid, many of his premises are still riddled with flaws. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay I would like to begin by addressing two arguments for mind-body separation that arise from the difference in properties between the two entities. First, I will discuss the famous Doubt Argument which, as Hooker points out, is often considered "his main argument for the distinction between himself and his body."[1] The argument follows from the cogito conclusion; the meditator cannot doubt his own existence since his existence is evident from his thinking at that moment; the fact that he thinks is clear from his doubt. Descartes notes that “from there I recognized that I was a substance whose whole essence and nature is to be conscious and whose being requires no place and does not depend on any material thing.” The skeptic cannot doubt his existence, but by contemplating his body, he is unable to trust its reality (it may be an illusion, for example). It is therefore clear that the mind and the body must be distinct since they are not. both have the property of incontestability. Formally, Descartes argues that (1) I can doubt that my body exists (2) I cannot doubt that I exist (3) Therefore, I am not identical to my body. The argument seems suspect. First, the argument as presented is not a formally valid logical proof; premises do not naturally lead to the conclusion without the addition of another premise. Descartes does not add this premise, but later commentators tend to accept its implicit nature. It seems that Descartes presupposes Leibniz's law, the principle of the indistinguishability of identicals: "for all things, x and y, if x is identical to y, then for all properties, p, xap if, and only if, y » ap[2].' Acceptance of the validity of the argument in case of doubt therefore rests on the acceptance of this principle. Descartes, even if he implicitly relies on it, does not provide an argument in its favor. Fortunately, the indiscernibility of identicals is commonly accepted among philosophers, although objections have been raised. Hooker reminds us, for example, of Kenny's belief in the limits of Leibniz's law; the law, he asserts, cannot be used in “modal and intentional contexts.” According to Kenny, Descartes implicitly relies on law in such a context and is therefore guilty of “needing a principle not applicable to his premises; or, as some would say, a false principle[4].' A lotwould disagree with Kenny's objection and accept Leibniz's law as a necessary and unlimited truth of numerically identical things. However, the fact that it can be doubted weakens Descartes' thesis since, firstly, he does not defend Leibniz's law and does not even recognize its use (Descartes would not have defended a law called "Leibniz's law" since 'it did not yet exist).was formulated, but he did not defend his use of the principle that today we would call Leibniz's law), thus leaving him exposed to this kind of criticism. Second, even if Descartes implicitly relies on Leibniz's law, he is not able to do so; he has only just concluded his own existence and is not able to assert general laws about the identity of objects whose existence he has not yet proven. Hooker points out another problem with the argument from doubt; Descartes argues from the fact that he doubts that his body exists and that he does not doubt that it exists to the “re counterparts[5]” of these affirmations: his body has the property of being doubted by he and he, as a thinking thing, does not have it. This sort of approach could lead to a far-fetched inference such as Hooker's example concerning Tom and his father: "I may doubt that John ever fathered a son, so John has the property of making it so that I may doubt that he ever fathered a son. I cannot doubt that Tom's father ever fathered a son, so I do not have the property of doubting that Tom's father ever fathered a son. Since John owns property that Tom's father did not, the two are distinct[6].' The argument is obviously fallacious. Arnauld expresses a similar concern in the fourth set of objections; just because we can doubt that an object has a property does not mean that it does not have that property. He uses the example of a right triangle arguing that one might well doubt whether it has the Pythagorean property, but that does not mean the triangle does not have it since it is a necessary part of a right triangle. triangle. The distinction between the triangle and this characteristic is impossible. Likewise, “despite my ability to imagine myself without a body, the body is indeed an essential part of me, something without which I could not exist[7]”. It seems that the property of being doubted by the meditator is not a true property of an object, it is a fact about the meditator. Descartes attempts to address Arnauld's concern in his responses. He argues that "...we cannot have a clear understanding of a triangle having the square on its hypotenuse equal to the squares on the other sides without at the same time being aware that it is right." And yet we can clearly and distinctly perceive the mind without the body and the body without the mind[8].' However, we know this fact about triangles. It is mathematically impossible that this is not the case. In the case of the mind and body, we begin our investigations from a place of ignorance; although it is conceivable that the two are distinct, they could just as easily be inseparable without our knowledge. As Hatfield says, “it is possible that the thinking self and the body are in reality identical, and the reasoner is unaware of this fact.”[9] » Descartes later attempts to escape the claim that he draws his conclusion from ignorance by denying that the passages in the speech which suggest this were not intended to be his conclusion (although it appears that they were: "from then on I knew that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think, and which does not do so".[10] ...') Descartes sends contradictory and confused messages here.In any case, Descartes himself seems to admit that the argument from doubt, as presented in the Discourse, fails. It can be made valid but remains unfounded. Next, I would like to address the divisibility argument. The argument simply asserts that the mind and body are distinct entities; the first is indivisible and the second divisible. Descartes argues that “...when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am only a thinking thing, I am incapable of distinguishing any part in myself; I see myself as something completely unique and complete. Although the whole spirit seems to be united with the whole body, I recognize that if a foot, an arm or any other part of the body is cut off, nothing has thereby been taken away from the spirit. Once again , Leibniz's law must come into play for purposes of validity. The mind and body are distinct because they do not possess the same attributes, i.e. indivisibility. Perhaps the most obvious problem here is that Descartes's conception of the mind does not seem to marry well with medical observations about the mind. Brain damage has been shown to affect our minds and diminish our mental abilities. Cottingham is very neutral on this particular point; he argues that there is an abundance of evidence demonstrating that mental capacity is diminished by damage to the nervous system, for example, "and the inference, with depressing probability, must be that total destruction of the central nervous system will result in total mental extinction. » ].' Furthermore, he recognizes how common it is for the mind to appear to exist in tension with itself, that is, for there to be almost two wills existing within the mind. Consciousness is therefore not necessarily a unified thing. Even if it were a unified thing, it could still rely on the physical brain which, as Descartes accepts, can be divided. Descartes' argument in the Meditations, often called "the argument from clear and distinct perception", seems much less susceptible to obvious errors than arguments arising from distinct properties of mind and body, although errors are always present. The argument again emphasizes that the meditator is absolutely sure that he is a thinking thing and that he has a sufficiently clear understanding of what thinking is to enable him to accept the possibility that he is not a thinking thing. extended thing. Likewise, the meditator has a clear understanding of the body as an extended, non-thinking thing; it is essential to its being that it be extended, but it is not necessary that it be a thinking thing. If the meditator can conceive of a thinking thing not being extended and an extended thing not thinking, then it is possible for God to create a world in which these clearly understood possibilities are actually the case in reality. If God could indeed create a thinking and non-extending thing and vice versa, then they must be distinct and separately existing things. First, many have recognized the problem of Descartes apparently asserting that because he can clearly and distinctly perceive the mind and body as existing. separated, they may in fact be distinct. Arnauld enters once again with his triangle. He argues that one could clearly and distinctly perceive the existence of a right triangle without possessing the Pythagorean property and Descartes seems to suggest that this makes the object and the principle distinct. Obviously, this is not the case. Descartes responds by asserting that the Pythagorean principle is not a complete thing and that he discusses complete things. As Cottingham says, “his conception of the mind is, he maintains, complete; because what he is aware of – his thought – is enough for him to exist with this.