Cartesian Dualism and the Mind-Body Problem
Exploring one of the most interesting conundrums in philosophy…
Cartesian Dualism
The Cartesian Dualism Theory by René Descartes claims that mind and body have a completely different nature, or that they are really distinct substances, and hence one can exist without the other.
In support of this theory, he provided two arguments in his Sixth Meditation:
Since the mind and the body can both be conceived clearly and distinctly apart from each other, it follows that God could cause either to exist independently of the other. This satisfies the traditional criteria for a metaphysical distinction.
The essence of the body as a geometrically defined region of space includes the possibility of its infinite divisibility, but the mind, despite the variety of its many faculties and operations, must be conceived as a single, unitary, indivisible being. And since incompatible properties cannot inhere in any one substance, the mind and body are perfectly distinct.
Although Descartes puts forward several interesting points through his theory, it is not without flaws. Firstly, it heavily relies on the presupposition that God exists, and that he is omnipotent and has a non-deceptive nature, and secondly, there’s the problem of mind-body causal interaction. The latter will be explored in detail in this blog.
The Mind-Body Problem
The Mind-Body problem is considered to be one of the most significant enigmas in philosophy. It was developed in the 17th century. It deals with consciousness and the physical body. Philosophers face a difficulty in understanding the relationship between the two. Humans are physical as well as mental beings. These two beings undoubtedly interact with each other. The difficulty lies in figuring out exactly how they interact, given that one exists in a physical plane whereas the other does not.
Descartes, whose substance dualism theory highlighted the sharp contrast between mind and body as two completely different, independent substances, ultimately gave rise to this problem, to which he himself has no sound solution.
However, the credit for discovering this problem goes not to Descartes, but to his critics who pointed it out after reading his substance dualism theory. They are Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Pierre Gassendi.
They held that in order for the soul to interact with and impact the body, it needs to be able to make contact with it, and for that to be possible, the mind too must exist in some way on the physical plane, where the body is.
Princess Elisabeth, who was a pupil of Descartes, wrote to him in a letter in 1643-
I beg you to tell me how the human soul can determine the movement of the animal spirits in the body so as to perform voluntary acts — being as it is merely a conscious substance. For the determination of the movement seems always to come about from the moving body’s being propelled — to depend on the kind of impulse it gets from what it sets in motion, or again, on the nature and shape of this latter thing’s surface. Now the first two conditions involve contact, and the third involves that the impelling [thing] has extension; but you utterly exclude extension from your notion of soul, and contact seems to me incompatible with a thing’s being immaterial.
Note- Animal here does not refer to beasts, but is derived from the word ‘anima’ which means ‘soul’, and refers to the air that inflates muscles.
So the question still remains–how is it possible that two completely distinct substances with extremely different natures causally interact with one another to enable a human being to have voluntary and intentional bodily sensations and motions?
Naturally, the consequences of this problem are very severe for Descartes. It undermines his claim to have a clear and distinct understanding of the mind without the body.
As per Gassendi and Elisabeth (and general human instincts), for humans to have sensations and voluntary movements, a surface along with contact are required. Their natures cannot be mutually exclusive if a causal interaction is to occur. If the mind is thought to have a surface and capacity for motion, the mind, just like the body, must also be extended. This would mean that mind and body are not completely different/distinct, which negates Cartesian Dualism.
Descartes’ Reply
Descartes dismissed the mind-body problem by replying–
- A response to this problem presupposes an explanation of the union between the mind/soul and the body.
- The question itself stems from the false presupposition that two substances with completely different natures cannot interact.
However, these arguments have proved to be unsatisfactory, and the mind-body problem still remains one of the biggest puzzles in philosophy.
Sources– The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and The Philosophical Writings of René Descartes
Also read — Exploring Cartesian Dualism
