Paper Example on Rene Descartes Substance Dualism

Introduction

Dualism is a philosophical tendency that, contrary to monism, esteems as the foundation of existence, not one but two different substances. Descartes considered that two independent principles, two substances, material and spiritual, are the foundation of what exists. The Cartesian solution consists of completely separating the soul from the body, the spirit from matter. The universe and the human body as a part of it are like a machine, but the Soul is something else: a mind, a spiritual substance whose essence is thought and which has nothing to do with the matter. The bodies are material and are characterized by extension, by occupying a place in space, however, the soul is immaterial and inextensible. So, according to Descartes, there is no contradiction if we affirm opposite things of the soul and the body: the soul is immortal and the mortal body and the soul is immaterial and the material body. I do not believe in dualism because of several weaknesses that the concept has.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The first problem that arises almost spontaneously when this kind of dualism arises is to ask: how is it possible for a non-spatial substance to interact with a substance that is in space? How can it be that mind and body, two very different substances, keep very close relationships? Descartes' response to this objection is causation. The states of our minds and the states of our brains interact causally. When a person experiences bodily sensations such as pain or tickling cause us moodiness or laughter, this occurs because such bodily sensations cause brain states that in turn cause bodily movements. Thus, our actions are determined by desires, beliefs or intentions; and acting on these desires is explained because they causally determine our brain states, which in turn cause our bodies to move and, consequently, influence the physical world. In the opposite direction, the physical world exerts causal influence on our minds through its influence on our brains. In this way, Descartes maintained that there is a causal psychophysical interaction in two lanes: from the mental to the physical (i.e. intentional actions) and from the physical to the mental (i.e. perception). However, explanation leaves unresolved an even more important problem: how can the states of a non-spatial substance interact causally with states of a substance that is in space? Cartesianism could respond by placing the mind in a spatial place, however, it would still have to maintain that these relations are immediate, not mediated by any underlying mechanism, a fact that seems impossible to verify. Therefore, the problem remains open and the functioning of the causal relationships between the two states remains unexplained.

The second problem is related to the type of knowledge that can be had about the operations of a mind. According to the official doctrine, every person has an unbeatable knowledge of these operations. Thus, according to Cartesianism, states and mental processes are conscious states and processes that do not engender illusions or give rise to doubts. Thus, the thoughts, feelings, and desires of a person, their perceptions, memories, and images are intrinsically clear and distinct for their owner. So the apprehension of mental contents is epistemically privileged because it is absolutely true. This absolute certainty about a trial assumes its infallibility (one cannot be wrong about it: the fact of being believed implies the true being), its incorrigibility (it cannot be canceled, overcome or corrected by other people or by the same subject time later) and indubitability (one cannot have grounds to doubt the truth of a belief referring to mental states). In short, a subject is omniscient with respect to his own mental states of occurrence. Also, in this context of mental impressions, the distinction between appearance and reality disappears completely. There is one main problem that arises from the Cartesian proposal on the epistemic privilege of our mental states.

For us, it is natural to distinguish between the public physical world and a private mental domain. It is impossible for two people to have the same experience since their access consists of a subjective relationship with mental phenomena. If you like, the others may have a similar experience, but never the same (i.e. A cannot have the pain of B, but an analogous one). In principle, according to traditional Cartesianism, one cannot doubt whether one is having an experience or not. Thus, one's experiences are apodictic or invincible. Mental states, as assumed by Hume, are transparent and infallible. Well, from all the above it is possible to derive a thesis of epistemic privacy. This thesis has two faces: on the one hand, I cannot know about the mental states and experiences of other people as I can know about mine; on the other, the others cannot know of my experiences and mental states as they know of theirs. So to attribute states and mental processes to other people is to make statements about their current behavior or their dispositions to behave. But there is always the possibility that their behaviors are deceptive and do not correspond to the mental states that we ascribe to them. It follows that, if an experience or mental state can occur without corresponding behavior occurring, and if the behavior can occur without a concurrent experience or appropriate mental state, then the behavior is not logically connected with the mental.

From the previous statement different logically concatenated conclusions emerge that end up presenting a strong and unbearable criticism of traditional Cartesianism. According to the thesis of epistemic privacy, we cannot reach a genuine knowledge of other minds, as we can do with our own. It poses, then, a skepticism about other minds: although we certainly believe things about the mental states of others, would not it be consistent, or at least plausible, to conclude that they are mere automatons? This is followed by a skepticism about communication: if two people cannot have the same experience, and if the words of their languages are defined in relation to experiences, then our assumption that they can share their beliefs with others with Expressive purposes or mutual understanding, seems unsteady. In other words, what evidence do I have that what others perceive and call "red" is what I perceive and call "red"? From this arises, then, the impossibility of communication. That is, what kind of dialogue could take place with categorically different contents: indubitable beliefs on the one hand, and weak inferences on the other? Thus, my language is a private, incommunicable language. The logical conclusion of all this is solipsism. If it is logically impossible to communicate with others and thus reach the content of their thoughts or desires, there is no doubt about whether they are human or automatons, because there is no way to verify if they have the same experiences that I have. So, not only is my language private, but I lack all evidence about humanity, minds, and others. Despite their corporeal presence, I have no reasonable basis to accept that there are souls or minds behind those bodies. Here is an important problem for Cartesian dualism.

Conclusion

It would be unfair to completely discard Descartes' intellectual effort because of criticisms that have arisen at the present time. Undoubtedly, this would be an improper anachronism. We must not forget that the period in which he lived reigned mechanistic thinking. Galileo had shown that his method of scientific investigation was apt to provide a mechanical theory applicable to all space bodies. Descartes, as a man of science, could not help but support the pretensions of mechanics, but as a religious man and of moral convictions, he could not accept the consequence that human nature differs from that of a clock only in a degree of complexity. Thus, all his work is the product of the dominant current of thought. Also, its system has a lot to do with the constructions of the Scholastic.