Descartes' Account of the Nature of Mind and Body (Essay Sample)

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Descartes' Account of the Nature of Mind and Body
Rene Descartes’s contribution to the development of psychology and philosophy is very extensive. Descartes had a very versatile personality, and, therefore, his investing in the philosophy of new knowledge is based on knowledge of physics, physiology, mathematics, which he also excelled as a scholar in. Descartes developed the philosophy of rationalism, and such method is called rationalistic. He was the one who first doubted the claim that only the soul can affect the body, but the body itself impacts the body slightly. Such an idea can be called revolutionary. The doctrine of being takes a significant place in Descartes’s work. The central concept of this doctrine is the substance. Under the substance, Descartes understands all things which do not need anything other than themselves for their being. It may be an idea and a physical object. However, in the strictest and most profound sense of the word, according to Descartes, the substance it is the only God, who is eternal, omnipresent, and omnipotent (Pojman and Vaughn 291). He is the Creator of all things and the source of all good and truth. The concept of substance can be applied to the creation of the world only conditionally. This paper will examine Descartes' account of the nature of mind and body.
Descartes's Account of the Nature of Mind and Body
Descartes divides the whole created world into two kinds of substances: the spiritual and the material. The main sign of a spiritual substance is its indivisibility; meanwhile, the key feature of material substance is endless divisibility. The main characteristic and radical property of the spiritual substance is thinking, and of the attribute of the material, substance is the stretch. The rest of the attributes are derived from those of the first, and they should be called the modes. For instance, modes of thinking are imagination, feeling, desire and modes of stretch are a figure, position, movement, and so on (Alanen).
According to Descartes, in man, there are two created by God and drastically different from each other substances. One is the extended (bodily) substance, and the other is thinking (spiritual) substance (Pojman and Vaughn 296). Both are equal and independent of each other. The dualism of Descartes clearly manifests itself in this provision. Therefore, double man or dissected into two halves man of Descartes is a weak creature, but he is able to strengthen themselves and to raise up through their mind.
The main Descartes' principle consists in the fact that the body and soul are different substances (Pojman and Vaughn 296). His philosophy can be called dualistic since it implies equality of material and ideal. However, they can exist separately from each other. Comparing the bodily and spiritual substances, Descartes talks about their opposition to each other. The difference lies in the fact that the body is divisible, meanwhile, the soul is not (Pojman and Vaughn 297). The activity of the soul can not be explained by mechanical principles. A soul is a tool of knowledge. Interestingly, under the thinking, Descartes understood not only the human mental operations, but also feelings, sensations, and all that people are aware of (Pojman and Vaughn 296). In fact, the philosopher compares the psyche with consciousness, which is opposed to the body.
Descartes came up with the idea of the independent existence of the soul and body (Pojman and Vaughn 296). Once the two substances are absolutely opposed to each other, they do not need each other. Moreover, Descartes distinguishes various properties of the body and soul. For the soul, the main properties are thinking (Pojman and Vaughn 296), and for the body, it is the extension. The human body, the whole nature, the heavenly bodies, plants, and animals are material things. The soul is a substance that consists in the thinking (Pojman and Vaughn 296). For Descartes, the highest form of thinking is the reflection.
As a physicist and physiologist of his time, Descartes compares the human body to automation. He gives a brief description of the functions of the body such as digestion, and circulation. Considering the influence of the nerves on the functioning of internal organs, Descartes made a conclusion about animal spirits. According to Descartes, these animal spirits provide movement of the body (Alanen). They are very mobile and small in size. Spirits come into muscles and can freely move from one to another muscle. It turns out that when the spirit leaves the muscles, it is stretched and weakened. The other muscles, which come to these spirits, begin to shrink. Thus, as a result, the movement of the body takes place. Descartes explains the involuntary movements of the person in this way (Alanen). By these conclusions, Descartes describes a reflex, but he does not enter the very term.
In order to formulate the concept of an interaction of soul and body, it was necessary to find a physical body, where they could be combined. In accordance with a long philosophical tradition, Descartes maintained that the soul is absolutely simple in structure. He believes that such a body should be somewhere in the brain because the experimental data showed that the impressions are moving from the periphery to the brain and vice versa, all the impulses come from the movement of the brain. It was quite clear that the brain is playing a special role in all psychic processes.
Thus, in humans, the soul is located mainly in the gland, which is in the middle of the brain. It is called the seat of the soul. It is the pineal gland, located in the diencephalon (Pojman and Vaughn 298). The soul can catch the movement of living spirits, which in turn may lead it to different movements. Meanwhile, the soul itself can cause movement under the influence of impressions (Pojman and Vaughn 298). Thus, the existence of such a gland in animals is surprising. Soul influences the spirits, surrounding it which in turn are sent to the muscles. The gland, which is the soul, enables movement of the body. The soul is able to think, and, therefore, the human soul is able to receive information about regarding th outside world.
Critical Evaluating of Descartes' Provisions
When evaluating critically Descartes' account of the nature of the mind and body, it can be noted that certain contradictions are found. On the one hand, he talks about the incompatibility of the two substances which are the body and soul. The soul is wholly and truly shared with the body, and can be and exist without it. However, on the other hand, Descartes says that the soul is actually connected to the body. This relation is evidenced by self-observation and experience. Physiological needs, the perception of color, taste, odor, heat are the products of a combination of soul and body, which ...