Rene Descartes: The Nature of Reality
Rene Descartes (1596- 1650) is one of the most important philosophers of the past few centuries. One of the most widely known philosophical ideas is in his theory of Dualism in the existence of reality. Descartes tried to prove that he himself must have the basic characteristic of thinking, and that which thinks, the mind, is distinct from his body, the existence of gods, the existence of nature, of the world etc. After his death, Descartes left the ongoing mind-body problem. Descartes mind-body theory combines substance dualism with attribute or property dualism. Substance dualism holds that the mind or soul is a separate, non-physical entity. According to property dualism, there is no soul, distinct from the body; only the person has two irreducible and different types of properties, mental and physical. Substance dualism allows for the possibility that the soul might be able to exist apart from the body either before birth or after death. Property dualism allows for the compatibility of mental and physical causation, since the cause of an action could be explained as an event in the brain, or as a desire, emotion, or thought. Subst
ance dualism usually demands causal interaction between the soul and the body. (Honderich, 1995) Descartes tried to solve his mind body problem through the pineal gland, a structure near the top of the brain that is not duplicated in both its halves. He believed that the soul, being one in itself, could not affect the body at two points-that it directly moved the pineal gland affecting the "animal spirits", which he thought to be part of the system of mechanical changes. He believed that the direction of these movements was what affected the soul; changes in the body are processed to the pineal gland by the spirits and can then affect the soul by causing sensations in it. (Edwards, 1967) The brain and nervous system seem to be part of the physical world: tangible, physical, public, and extended in space; thoughts, feelings, consciousness, and other states of mind are seen as mental: intangible, private, not in space, and having no specific place in matter or time. If brain and mind are of different kinds, and if the laws of causality require similar kinds of causes and effects, then one would agree upon Descartes' dualism in the impossibility for the brain and mind to
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