Analysis Of Descartes 's ' First Attempt '

René Descartes believed that the mind and body are separate; that the senses could not always be trusted, but that because we as humans are able to think about our existence, we possess some sort of entity separate than our fleshly body. I believe this separate entity to be a soul”an immaterial and

Descartian dualism is one of the most long lasting legacies of Rene Descartes’ philosophy. He argues that the mind and body operate as separate entities able to exist without one another. That is, the mind is a thinking, non-extended entity and the body is non-thinking and extended. His belief elicited a debate over the nature of the mind and body that has spanned centuries, a debate that is still vociferously argued today. In this essay, I will try and tackle Descartes claim and come to some conclusion as to whether Descartes is correct to say that the mind and body are distinct.

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing”. [1] The concept that the mind is an intangible, thinking entity while the body is a tangible entity not capable of thought is known as Cartesian Dualism. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Descartes tries to prove that the mind or soul is, in its essential nature, entirely distinct from the

The purpose of the wax argument is designed to provide a clear and distinct knowledge of “I”, which is the mind, while corporeal things, “whose images are framed by thought, and which the senses themselves imagine are much more distinctly known than this mysterious ‘I’ which does not fall within the imagination” (66). Through the wax argument, Descartes’ demonstrates that corporeal things are perceived neither through our senses nor imagination, but through our intellect alone. In this argument, you will see that there is cause to doubt Descartes’ analysis of the wax and his method of philosophical reasoning.

‘Cogito Ergo Sum,’ - ‘I think therefore I am ‘ one of the most famous and well known quotes or arguments in all of modern philosophy; a phrase instantly recognizable to all those studying in the field of philosophy. This phrase refers to an attempt by Descartes to prove with absolute certainty his own existence; a systematic way to philosophize. The argument, while first proposed by ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Saint Augustine, was utilized as an argument by French philosopher Rene Descartes in his influential text “Meditations on First Philosophy“. This argument appears in the books second meditation and provides the cornerstone for Descartes argument in the following five meditations and serves as the basis for Descartes overall metaphysical thesis, without which Descartes reasoning system would collapse. Throughout this paper I will

Summary: The problem of the soul continues as Descartes suggested that the human is composed of two completely different substances; a physical body which Descartes compares with a machine, and a non-physical mind, related to the soul, that allows humans to think and feel even if it has no “measurable dimensions” (67). But Elizabeth put in doubt his ideologies when she realized that a non-physical thing doesn’t have the strength to push and move the body. This led to several questions unanswered and also let space for other materialist theories such as behaviorism, mind-brain identity, and functionalism, which also fail in offering an explicit solution.

Descartes then goes on to explain the notion of 'heaviness' and says that believes it has been misused when it is supposed as a real quality, and that it was given to us for the purpose of regarding the way in which the soul moves the body. Princess Elizabeth's then replies, and Descartes writes another letter back in order to answer more of her questions regarding the mind-body interaction and help her more understand his reasoning. He begins by saying that even though she may want to perceive the soul as material (in order to understand its union with the body), she should still recognize that it is separate from the body. He regards that if it is easier for Princess Elizabeth to "attribute matter and extension to the soul than to attribute to it the capacity to move a body and to be moved by one without having matter" (Page 228), then she should do that, and then by doing that eventually she will be able to comprehend and visualize the union of the body and soul that he mentioned in the first

In Meditation six: Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body, Rene Descartes wrote of his distinctions between the mind and the body, first by reviewing all things that he believed to be true, then assessing the causes and later calling them into doubt, and then finally by considering what he must now believe. By analyzing Descartes’ writing, this paper will explicate Descartes’ view on bodies and animals, and if animals have minds. Before explicating the answer to those questions, Descartes’ distinctions between the mind and the body should first be summarized and explained.

No, Descartes clearly states, in a pedantic garble, that he believes in a perfect being, that he appropriately refers to as ‘God’. In his own words he writes, “Thus the only remaining option was that this idea was put in me by a nature that was really more perfect than I was…that is…in a single word… God.” (Descartes 26) Furthermore, Descartes believes that it is human imperfection and lack of abstract contemplation that manifests into a lack of understanding about the concept of a perfect being. Descartes writes about how metaphysical perceptions are closely related to reality for they would not be thought of if the human mind could not conceptualize such abstract ideas. (Descartes 28)

Descartes argues that the soul and body may interact yet remain two distant things. He believes they interact through downward and upward causation. Downward causation being the mental state influencing the physical state and upward causation physical influencing mental. For example, depression that leads someone to suicide is a downward causation, mental state influences physical.

“I think, therefore I am” is the basis for all of Descartes arguments. The “I” or the thinking thing is the only reality of the self. Everything else is classified as res extensa or extending things and is an illusion. According to Descartes, one must be careful when dealing with objects or material things. Senses may provide an illusion to reality and play the role of a distracter from what is true. In this case, it is thinking that establishes reality and the existence of the individual and the soul. Descartes’s statement attempts to prove God through the existence of the “I”. If one is able to think, therefore he exists his own reality. Furthermore, God exists because the “I” thinks of the concept and has some understanding of God and reality. This self-centered method of proving God is simply one step further from what Augustine already stated. Everything stems from the “I” so thinking is placed at the center of control and reality. God is no longer at the center and is depraved to a mere figment of the thinking of the individual.

In part two of the Discourse on the Method, Descartes is inquiring about how he can be certain that his acquired judgements are true. Upon inquiring, he compares his acquired judgments to buildings, “which several have tried to patch up by adapting old walls built for different purposes,” to explain that a building is typically more structurally sound when it is made up of just one craftsman (25). Consequently, making it such that judgments are also more structurally sound when they are governed by just one party; that one party being himself. As opposed to being governed by “our appetites and our teachers,” which, in often, times are opposed to each other; therefore, making such judgments unfit to hold as true (25). Once it has been established

In response to Descartes letter, Princess Elisabeth is told that weight, heat, and rest are examples of immaterialities a body can have that involve interaction with the body that possesses it. Princess Elisabeth responds and says no material cause of weight presents itself to senses. That the power must be due to the opposite of nature and what is material.

In René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, one of the overarching theme is to provide a correct infrastructure on how to build a system of knowledge of the individual. Through Descartes' writing, there is sufficient evidence to prove that Descartes’ point of view on how the knowledge of the individual is obtained is correct because is an additional necessity to explain the need for a deeper understanding of how we obtain our knowledge. The factors that will help prove the why a deeper understanding of knowledge are as follows: the deceiving of the senses in an individual’s dream in the First Meditations, the existence of the individual’s mind in the Second Meditations, and the differences in the types of freedom in judgment in the

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes strives first and foremost to provide an infallibly justified foundation for the empirical sciences, and second to prove the existence of God. I will focus on the first and second meditations in my attempt to show that, in his skepticism of the sources of knowledge, he fails to follow the rules he has set out in the Discourse on Method. First I claim that Descartes fails to draw the distinction between pure sensation and inference, which make up what he calls sensation, and then consider the consequences of this failure to follow his method. Second, I will show that in his treatment of thinking Descartes fails to distinguish between active and passive thinking.