Goran Ogar Dr.

Jason West PHIL 244 - Epistemology March 15, 2013

Dualism and Descartes Conception of Mind

Ren Descartes (15961650) is widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy. He is commonly considered to be the instigator of the mind-body dualism and the modern mind-body problem.1 In philosophy, dualism is the assumption that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical2 or that the mind and body are distinct.3 Even a superficial historical reflection will show that long before Descartes, some form of dualism existed. Aristotle, for example, considered a substance to be that which possessed properties, but which was not a property itself; the Christian tradition had maintained throughout the centuries before Descartes that a human soul is immortal and that it continues its existence even after the corporeal death. However, in spite of the prior dualistic philosophies, there is enough reason to say that Descartes formulated our modern conception of the mental as including far more: sense, perception, imagination, feeling, emotion, and as he put it, the mind is the thing that thinks res cogitans. 4 It was him who initiated the modern mind-body problem in the sense that he formulated the modern view of what belongs to the category of the mental, which we investigate in its relation to the physical. This paper will focus on Descartes understanding of mind and its interaction with body, and it will bring up the objections and problems as encountered within the theory.

Rozemond, Marleen The Nature of the Mind in The Blackwell guide to Descartes' Meditations. Gaukroger, ed. Stephen. Malden, MA Oxford: Blackwell Pub, 2006. p.48 2 ,Hart, W.D. "Dualism", in A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, ed. Samuel Guttenplan, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. pp. 265-7. 3 Crane, Tim; Patterson, Sarah "Introduction". History of the Mind-Body Problem. 2001. pp. 12. 4 Rozemond, p.48

As already mentioned above, through Aristotelian philosophical reflection, we understand that a substance is that which possesses properties but which itself is not a property. Properties cannot exist on their own, they are not substances. On the other hand, substances cannot be the properties of the other things. While searching for the substance - or the substances - that underlie the properties of everything, one is searching for the real nature of the world, and for the answer to the question of what is everything made of. For Descartes, there were two types of substances: the mind substance and the physical substance, and for him there is a clear and total separation of the two. This idea eventually became known as Cartesian Dualism. For Spinoza, on the other hand, there was only one substance, mind and body is one and the same thing, modes of the same, and therefore there is no need for interaction between them. Leibniz proposed that there were infinite number of substances, of which each mind was an instance. 5

Descartes division of the world in two comes from an examination of his own nature, his mind, a thinking thing, on one side, and that which he is essentially not, his physical body on the other. He does not deny that his body belongs to him, but rejects the idea that his body is essentially him.6 He came to this conclusion while reflecting on his doubt about the existence of the body:

Nutrition or movement? But I do not now have a body, these things are nothing but imaginings. Sensations? This also does not happen without a body, and I seem to sense many things in dreams that later I notice I did not really sense. Thinking? I have found it: it is thinking; this alone cannot be taken away from me. I am, I exist, that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I think, for certainly it could happen that if I cease to think

5 6

Southwell, Gareth. A beginner's guide to Descartes's Meditations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2008., p.70 Southwell, p.71

entirely, I thereby entirely cease to be. I now do not admit anything unless it is necessarily true; I am then strictly speaking only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, spirit, intellect or reason, words whose meaning was previously unknown to me. I am a real thing, and really exist, but what kind of thing? I have said it, a thinking thing.7

Descartes understanding is that mind is a thinking thing (res cogitans), which is without dimension or physical existence. On the other hand, matter is an extended thing (res extensa). This causes the problem with Descartes concept of mind because he identified it almost as the opposite of matter or body. He has really identified himself only as an intellectual being, and anything that comes from the body is not a part of mind, therefore any sense perception is not a part of it. He accepts that intellectual thought is an integral part of mind, but he does not accept any sense perception as a part of it because of his doubts about body and the existence of the physical.8 Thus he claims that the intellectual activity is the only activity of the mind itself - of the pure mind, but all sensations are impure thoughts and belong to the unity of mind in the body:

we perceive that sensations of pain and all other sensations are not pure thoughts of the mind distinct from the body, but confused perceptions of the mind really united; for if an angel would be in a human body, it would not sense like us, but only perceive the motions that would be caused by external objects and in this way he would be distinguished from a real human being.9 I do not see any difficulty in understanding that the faculties of imagination and sensation belong to the soul, because they are species of thought; nevertheless they only

7 8

Descartes (AT vii, 27) Rozemond, p.51 9 Descartes, (AT iii, 493)

belong to the soul insofar as it is joined to the body, because they are sorts of thoughts without which one can conceive the soul entirely pure.10

Marlene Rozemond notes that this passage suggests that sensation does not merely require that the body acts on the mind in order to produce sensory states as an external efficiency cause, but that Descartes seems to think that the nature of the union of mind and body in a human being explains not just the occurrence of mental states on the occasion of states of the body, but it explains the qualitative nature of sensory states: it explains that we see colors, hear sounds, sense smells, rather than merely perceive configurations of primary qualities, as an angel would. For Descarts, she adds, The sensory affects in the mind are the result of the minds close, special union with the body; it is, as it were, intermingled with the body11

With this observation, we recognize that in Cartesian dualism there are two main problems which are traditionally identified and that need further explanation:

1. I seem to be aware of controlling my body via my thoughts, and I also seem to receive messages from it in terms of sensation, pains, etc. Yet, if the two substances are so different in almost every way, how do they interact? 2. If we cant interact with or detect mental substance in any way, how do we know that it exists? Wouldnt it be better to account for the mind in terms that we can measure? That is, by looking at how the physical substance of the brain produces and enables conscious thought?12

10 11

Descartes, (AT iii, 479) Rozemond p.56 12 Southwell p.72

The first problem has become known as the problem of interaction. The problem deals with the question of how body and mind interact with each other, that is, how can a physical and a nonphysical thing interact? The body is not intelligent in the sense that we can communicate with it and hope it understands, neither can my thought cause the physical nerves to react to its command. Physical things act on physical things, mental things act on mental things.13 This question was posed to Descartes by some of his contemporaries, notably Pierre Gassendi, who wondered how the corporeal can have anything in common with the incorporeal.14 One of Descartes two main responses to this is the intermingling theses:

Nature likewise teaches me by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so intimately conjoined and, as it were, intermixed with it, that my mind and body compose a certain unity.15

This argumentation is somewhat problematic to accept in any other way but symbolic since the mind is incorporeal, indivisible, and it cannot be literally mixed in with the body, as Descartes maintains. Rozemond notes, however, that Descartes letters to Gibieuf and Regius do suggest a specific view about the nature of sensations. She explains that for Descartes sensations are modes of the mind, but modes of the mind as long as it is united with the body.16 Tad Schmaltz also emphasizes that Descartes insisted in his late correspondence with Henry More that for

13 14

Ibid., p.72 Rene Descartes, Descartes: Key Philosophical Writings, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.T. Ross, Objections and Replies, p.246-9 15 Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, and Meditations on First Philosophy, trans F. E. Sutcliffe, London: Penguin Books, 1968. p.117 16 Rozemond, p.56

example God and angels, as well as human souls, can move bodies. He adds that Descartes has a reason to conclude that the mere fact that the soul can move its limbs does not clearly reveal that it is closely joined to the body it moves, but that the above mentioned sensations derive from certain bodily action on the mind.17 In The Passions of the Soul, Descartes suggests that in the case of soul and body, the interaction between the two might take place via the pineal gland:

The part of the body in which the soul directly exercises its functions is not the heart at all, or the whole of the brain. It is rather the innermost part of the brain, which is a certain very small gland situated in the middle of the brain's substance and suspended above the passage through which the spirits in the brain's anterior cavities communicate with those in its posterior cavities.18

Southwell points out that Descartes is not necessarily proposing here that the gland solves the problem of interaction, but merely that it is a likely place where interaction might take place. This solution, however, only seems to restate the original problem: the gland is a physical structure, how does the non-physical mind communicate with the physical gland?19 Bernard Williams expressed argument that Cartesian explanation of interaction is unsatisfactory given that ones control over ones body could not be understood as internal, localized psychokinesis. His assumption is that Descartes view that we can move our arm only by acting on our pineal gland commits him to the conclusion that we can produce this internal action directly by kind of psychokinesis.20

17 18

Schmaltz, Tad M. Descartes on causation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 p.142 Descartes (AT xi, 351) 19 Southwell, p.75 20 Wiliams, Bernard, Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. 1978. p.289.

Reflecting on the challenges as presented by the second problem as mentioned above, one is justified in asking whether Descartes has good argumentation to establish the distinction of mind and body in the first place, and whether there are enough convincing reasons to accept it? Southwell states that one of major arguments the Descartes uses in establishing the existence of mind as a separate substance is the conceivability argument. This argument states that it is possible to conceive of the mind as having a potentially separate existence from the body, thus that is the proof of the existence of the mind as separate from the body. The existence of the material world, including the existence of the body can be doubted, while the existence of the mind cannot.21 Antoine Arnauld, a contemporary of Descartes and one of his correspondents in the Objections and Replies, pointed out that it is perfectly possible to conceive of something clearly while also being ignorant of the other properties it possess, thus we might conceive of certain properties of the mind, and be ignorant of the others. He further points out that all Descartes is really doing is abstracting certain properties and crediting them with independent existence, which if fact they do not have. Just because we conceive of the mind abstractly, this does not mean that it has separate existence.22 Descartes response to this is to distinguish between the essential and inessential properties of an idea, and for him body is inessential to mind because we can conceive of the mind as not possessing any physical properties.23 As Southwell notices, Descartes argumentation poses a problem because it brings some confusion in the area of subjective experience of being a mind, and the objective existence of having mind.24

21 22

Southwell, p.75 Objections and Replies pp.228-238 23 Ibid., pp.228-238 24 Southwell, p.76

Another objection that Arnauld brings is the argument that the power of thinking seems to be attached to the corporeal organs, pointing out to the belief that it is asleep in infants, extinguished in the case of lunatics.25 In other words, if the brain is underdeveloped or there is a certain level of brain damage, it seems to affect our ability to think, as it is evident in modern medicine (e.g. caused by automobile accidents, drug abuse, pathological diseases, etc.). Descartes does not reject Arnaulds point, but only qualifies it, saying that there is a close connection between the brain and mind, but this does not mean that the two are not separate. This response, however, cannot be satisfactory, as it does not demonstrate that to a thinking thing the physical brain is inessential to the thinking process.26

Partially because of the problem of interaction, and partially because of the problem of conceiving of immaterial substance, most modern philosophers have rejected Cartesian dualism. This however led to another problem; a simple rejection of there being non-physical aspect of mind or a simple rejection of dualism provokes a different question: how do we explain with some sense that being conscious is very different from being a rock. Although Descartes does not provide all the answers, and from today perspective, where the medical science is a very different level than it was in the 17th century, and where we have a different perspective on the functions of the brain, one can conclude with confidence that many questions and answers that Descartes provides are puzzling and provoking even to the best of philosophical minds.

25 26

Objections and Replies pp.238-9 Ibid., pp.238-9

Bibliography Ariew, Roger. Descartes and the last Scholastics. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1999. Broughton, Janet. Descartes's method of doubt. Princeton, N.J. Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2003. Cottingham, John. The Cambridge companion to Descartes. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Gaukroger, Stephen. The Blackwell guide to Descartes' Meditations. Malden, MA Oxford: Blackwell Pub, 2006. Guttenplan, Samuel. A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996 Hatfield, Gary C., and Ren Descartes. Routledge philosophy guidebook to Descartes and the meditations. London New York: Routledge, 2003. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. Schmaltz, Tad M. Descartes on causation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Southwell, Gareth. A beginner's guide to Descartes's Meditations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2008. Wiliams, Bernard, Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. 1978 Wilson, Margaret D. Descartes. London: Routledge, 1991.