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Mind Body Dualism. In the sixth meditation, Descartes presents an argument regarding
mind and body dualism: the mind and body are utterly distinct. ...
... Cartesian Dualism Challenged In this paper, I will examine the issues of individuation
and identity in Descartes' philosophy of mind-body dualism. ...
... Clearly, belief in mind-body dualism would offer such support, at least in
the sense that survival seems far more likely if dualism is. ...
... An alternating theory to dualism is the mind/body identity theory. First, this
theory claims that your mind and brain are the same thing. ...
Dualism. Dualism I believe that the popular or "ghost in the machine" form
of substance dualism best solves the mind body problem. ...
Submitted by bhy4 on April 29, 2006
Category: Philosophy
Words: 716 | Pages: 3
Views: 478
Popularity Rank: 19,475
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In the sixth meditation, Descartes presents an argument regarding mind and body dualism: the mind and body are utterly distinct. He holds that they are both discrete and that the mind is a purely nonphysical substance. His argument attempts to show and validate that the mind is a completely separate and distinct entity from the body and that he can exist without it. First, he makes the claim that God is omnipotent, yet a good and pure God; therefore, if Descartes is strongly inclined to believe something as true, it would be deceptive of God to make him think otherwise. Therefore, in his perfect will, Descartes is convinced that anything he is able to conceive of is possible. With thisfor the rest of the paperI will explain the argument Descartes offers for this argument for dualism, and offer an objection to his argument.
Descartes must prove that the mind and body are distinct and he does this as follows. First, since the mind and the body can each be conceived clearly and distinctly apart from each other, it follows that God could cause either to exist independently of the other, and this satisfies the traditional criteria for a metaphysical and real distinction. In other words, if he can conceive of something clearly and distinctly (without contradiction), then that that thing is metaphysically possible (it is possible for God to establish it). Descartes then goes on to say that he can conceive of himself existing solely as a thinking being, with the absence of his body. Furthermore, he conceives of his body existing solely as a thing incompatible to thinkingwithout Descartes being resided in it. Therefore it is metaphysically possible for the mindhis mind for that matterto exist freely from his body. As a result, the body is not essential to the mind and the mind is not essential to the body; they are totally discrete entities. From meditation two, Descartes has concluded the only assertion that is free of doubt: I think,...
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