René Descartes:
The Mind-Body Distinction

descarteI of the deepest and most lasting legacies of Descartes' philosophy is his thesis that heed and torso are really distinct—a thesis now chosen "mind-body dualism." He reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind (that is, a thinking, non-extended affair) is completely different from that of the body (that is, an extended, non-thinking thing), and therefore it is possible for 1 to exist without the other. This argument gives ascent to the famous problem of mind-body causal interaction notwithstanding debated today: how can the mind cause some of our actual limbs to motility (for example, raising 1's manus to enquire a question), and how tin can the body's sense organs crusade sensations in the mind when their natures are completely different? This commodity examines these bug also every bit Descartes' ain response to this problem through his brief remarks on how the listen is united with the torso to course a human being. This will show how these issues ascend considering of a misconception about Descartes' theory of heed-body union, and how the right conception of their union avoids this version of the problem. The article begins with an examination of the term "real stardom" and of Descartes' probable motivations for maintaining his dualist thesis.

Table of Contents

  1. What is a Real Stardom?
  2. Why a Existent Distinction?
    1. The Religious Motivation
    2. The Scientific Motivation
  3. The Real Stardom Argument
    1. The Showtime Version
    2. The Second Version
  4. The Mind-Body Problem
  5. Descartes' Response to the Mind-Body Problem
  6. References and Further Reading
    1. Primary Sources
    2. Secondary Sources

1. What is a Real Distinction?

It is important to notation that for Descartes "real distinction" is a technical term denoting the distinction between two or more substances (seePrinciples, role I, section sixty). A substance is something that does non crave any other creature to exist—it can exist with only the help of God'south concurrence—whereas, a mode is a quality or amore of that substance (seePrinciples part I, department five). Appropriately, a way requires a substance to exist and non just the concurrence of God. Being sphere shaped is a way of an extended substance. For example, a sphere requires an object extended in 3 dimensions in guild to exist: an unextended sphere cannot be conceived without contradiction. But a substance can exist understood to be alone without requiring any other animal to exist. For example, a rock can exist all past itself. That is, its beingness is not dependent upon the beingness of minds or other bodies; and, a stone can exist without being any detail size or shape. This indicates for Descartes that God, if he chose, could create a world constituted by this stone all past itself, showing farther that it is a substance "really distinct" from everything else except God. Hence, the thesis that mind and body are really distinct only means that eachcould exist all past itself without any other creature, including each other, if God chose to practise it. Withal, this does not mean that these substancesdo exist separately. Whether or not they actually exist apart is another issue entirely.

2. Why a Real Stardom?

A question one might ask is: what's the point of arguing that heed and bodycould each exist without the other? What's the payoff for going through all the trouble and indelible all the issues to which it gives ascension? For Descartes the payoff is twofold. The starting time is religious in nature in that it provides a rational footing for a hope in the soul'due south immortality [because Descartes presumes that the mind and soul are more or less the same affair]. The second is more than scientifically oriented, for the complete absenteeism of mentality from the nature of physical things is central to making fashion for Descartes' version of the new, mechanistic physics. This section investigates both of these motivating factors.

a. The Religious Motivation

In his Letter of the alphabet to the Sorbonne published at the start of his seminal work,Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states that his purpose in showing that the human being listen or soul is really distinct from the trunk is to abnegate those "irreligious people" who only have religion in mathematics and will not believe in the soul's immortality without a mathematical sit-in of it. Descartes goes on to explain how, because of this, these people will non pursue moral virtue without the prospect of an afterlife with rewards for virtue and punishments for vice. Just, since all the arguments in theMeditations—including the real distinction arguments— are for Descartes absolutely sure on a par with geometrical demonstrations, he believes that these people will be obliged to accept them. Hence, irreligious people will be forced to believe in the prospect of an afterlife. However, recall that Descartes' determination is only that the mind or soultin can exist without the body. He stops short of demonstrating that the soul is actually immortal. Indeed, in theSynopsis to theMediations, Descartes claims only to accept shown that the decay of the body does not logically or metaphysically imply the devastation of the mind: farther argumentation is required for the conclusion that the mind actually survives the torso's devastation. This would involve both "an account of the whole of physics" and an argument showing that God cannot demolish the mind. Withal, even though the real distinction argument does non go this far, information technology does, according to Descartes, provide a sufficient foundation for religion, since the hope for an afterlife now has a rational basis and is no longer a mere article of faith.

b. The Scientific Motivation

The other motive for arguing that mind and body could each exist without the other is more than scientifically oriented, stemming from Descartes' intended replacement of final causal explanations in physics idea to be favored past late scholastic-Aristotelian philosophers with mechanistic explanations based on the model of geometry. Although the credit for setting the stage for this scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy dominant at Descartes' time should go to Thomas Aquinas (because of his initial, thorough estimation and appropriation of Aristotle's philosophy), it is also important to deport in heed that other thinkers working within this Aristotelian framework such equally Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Francisco Suarez, diverged from the Thomistic position on a variety of important bug. Indeed, by Descartes' time, scholastic positions divergent from Thomism became so widespread and subtle in their differences that sorting them out was quite difficult. Even so this convoluted assortment of positions, Descartes understood one thesis to stand at the center of the unabridged tradition: the doctrine that everything ultimately behaved for the sake of some end or goal. Though these "final causes," as they were called, were non the only sorts of causes recognized past scholastic thinkers, it is sufficient for present purposes to recognize that Descartes believed scholastic natural philosophers used them as principles for physical explanations. For this reason, a brief look at how final causes were supposed to work is in order.

Descartes understood all scholastics to maintain that everything was thought to accept a final crusade that is the ultimate terminate or goal for the sake of which the rest of the organism was organized. This principle of organization became known as a affair's "substantial form," because it was this principle that explained why some hunk of thing was arranged in such and such a way and then as to be some species of substance. For example, in the case of a bird, say, the consume, the substantial grade of swallowness was thought to organize matter for the sake of being a eat species of substance. Accordingly, any dispositions a swallow might take, such equally the disposition for making nests, would then as well be explained past means of this ultimate goal of beingness a swallow; that is, swallows are tending for making nests for the sake of being a swallow species of substance. This explanatory scheme was too thought to work for plants and inanimate natural objects.

A criticism of the traditional employment of substantial forms and their concomitant concluding causes in physics is institute in the6th Replies where Descartes examines how the quality of gravity was used to explain a body's downwards motion:

Merely what makes it especially articulate that my idea of gravity was taken largely from the idea I had of the listen is the fact that I idea that gravity carried bodies toward the centre of the earth as if it had some cognition of the centre within itself (AT VII 442: CSM II 298).

On this pre-Newtonian business relationship, a characteristic goal of all bodies was to reach its proper place, namely, the centre of the earth. So, the answer to the question, "Why exercise stones fall downward?" would be, "Because they are striving to achieve their goal of reaching the center of the earth." According to Descartes, this implies that the stone must accept knowledge of this goal, know the means to achieve it, and know where the center of the earth is located. Just, how can a stone know anything? Surely only minds can accept knowledge. Nonetheless, since stones are inanimate bodies without minds, it follows that they cannot know anything at all—let solitary annihilation about the center of the earth.

Descartes continues on to make the post-obit point:

But afterward I made the observations which led me to make a careful stardom between the idea of the heed and the ideas of trunk and corporeal motion; and I institute that all those other ideas of . . . 'substantial forms' which I had previously held were ones which I had put together or synthetic from those basic ideas (AT VII 442-iii: CSM Two 298).

Here, Descartes is claiming that the concept of a substantial form equally office of the entirely concrete world stems from a confusion of the ideas of mind and body. This confusion led people to mistakenly accredit mental backdrop like noesis to entirely non-mental things like stones, plants, and, yep, even not-human animals. The existent distinction of mind and body tin can then also be used to convalesce this confusion and its resultant mistakes by showing that bodies be and movement as they do without mentality, and as such principles of mental causation such as goals, purposes (that is, last causes), and knowledge have no part to play in the explanation of concrete phenomena. So the real distinction of mind and body also serves the more scientifically oriented end of eliminating whatsoever chemical element of mentality from the idea of body. In this manner, a articulate understanding of the geometrical nature of bodies can be accomplished and amend explanations obtained.

3. The Real Stardom Statement

Descartes formulates this argument in many dissimilar means, which has led many scholars to believe there are several unlike existent stardom arguments. However, information technology is more than accurate to consider these formulations as different versions of i and the same argument. The fundamental premise of each is identical: each has the fundamental premise that the natures of mind and body are completely different from one some other.

The Commencement Version

The kickoff version is found in this excerpt from the6th Meditation:

[O]n the ane manus I have a clear and distinct thought of myself, in so far as I am merely a thinking, non-extended matter [that is, a heed], and on the other manus I take a singled-out idea of body, in then far equally this is but an extended, non-thinking thing. And accordingly, information technology is certain that I am really singled-out from my body, and can exist without it (AT Seven 78: CSM Ii 54).

Notice that the argument is given from the first person perspective (as are the entireMeditations). This "I" is, of course, Descartes insofar as he is a thinking affair or mind, and the argument is intended to work for any "I" or mind. And then, for present purposes, information technology is safe to generalize the argument by replacing "I" with "listen" in the relevant places:

  1. I take a clear and distinct idea of the heed as a thinking, not-extended thing.
  2. I accept a clear and singled-out thought of body equally an extended, non-thinking thing.
  3. Therefore, the mind is really distinct from the body and can exist without it.

At outset glance it may seem that, without justification, Descartes is bluntly asserting that he conceives of listen and body as two completely different things, and that from his formulation, he is inferring that he (or any mind) can exist without the body. But this is no blunt, unjustified assertion. Much more is at work here: nigh notably what is at piece of work is his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas and their veridical guarantee. Indeed the truth of his intellectual perception of the natures of mind and body is supposed to exist guaranteed past the fact that this perception is "clear and distinct." Since the justification for these two premises rests squarely on the veridical guarantee of whatever is "conspicuously and distinctly" perceived, a brief side trip explaining this doctrine is in order.

Descartes explains what he means by a "clear and distinct idea" in his piece of workPrinciples of Philosophy at part I, section 45. Hither he likens a clear intellectual perception to a clear visual perception. And then, just equally someone might take a sharply focused visual perception of something, an thought is clear when it is in sharp intellectual focus. Moreover, an idea is distinct when, in improver to being clear, all other ideas non belonging to information technology are completely excluded from information technology. Hence, Descartes is claiming in both bounds that his thought of the mind and his idea of the body exclude all other ideas that practice not belong to them, including each other, and all that remains is what can be clearly understood of each. As a result, he clearly and distinctly understands the mind all by itself, separately from the body, and the body all past itself, separately from the mind.

According to Descartes, his power to clearly and distinctly understand them separately from i another implies that each can be lone without the other. This is because "[e]xistence is contained in the idea or concept of every single thing, since we cannot excogitate of anything except as existing. Possible or contingent being is contained in the concept of a limited affair…" (AT Vii 166: CSM Two 117). Descartes, and so, clearly and distinctly perceives the listen equally possibly existing all by itself, and the body as possibly existing all past itself. Just couldn't Descartes somehow be mistaken about his clear and distinct ideas? Given the existence of so many non-thinking bodies like stones, there is no question that bodies tin exist without minds. So, even if he could be mistaken well-nigh what he conspicuously and distinctly understands, at that place is other evidence in back up of premise 2. Merely can minds exist without bodies? Can thinking occur without a brain? If the answer to this question is "no," the first premise would exist fake and, therefore, Descartes would be mistaken about one of his clear and distinct perceptions. Indeed, since we accept no experience of minds actually existing without bodies every bit we do of bodies actually existing without minds, the argument will stand only if Descartes' articulate and distinct understanding of the heed's nature somehow guarantees the truth of premise 1; just, at this indicate, it is not evident whether Descartes' "clear and singled-out" perception guarantees the truth of anything.

However, in the4th Meditation, Descartes goes to neat lengths to guarantee the truth of whatever is conspicuously and distinctly understood. This veridical guarantee is based on the theses that God exists and that he cannot be a deceiver. These arguments, though very interesting, are numerous and circuitous, and so they volition not exist discussed here. Suffice it to say that since Descartes believes he has established God'south inability to deceive with accented, geometrical certainty, he would have to consider anything contradicting this determination to exist fake. Moreover, Descartes claims that he cannot help merely believe clear and distinct ideas to be true. However, if God put a clear and distinct idea in him that was false, then he could non help but believe a falsehood to exist true and, to make matters worse, he would never exist able to discover the mistake. Since God would be the author of this imitation clear and distinct idea, he would be the source of the fault and would, therefore, be a deceiver, which must exist false. Hence, all clear and distinct ideas must be true, considering it is impossible for them to exist faux given God's non-deceiving nature.

That said, the clarity and distinctness of Descartes' agreement of heed and body guarantees the truth of premise ane. Hence, both "articulate and distinct" premises are non blunt, unjustified assertions of what he believes but have very strong rational back up from within Descartes' system. All the same, if it turns out that God does not exist or that he can be a deceiver, so all bets are off. At that place would then no longer exist whatever veridical guarantee of what is clearly and distinctly understood and, equally a consequence, the first premise could be faux. Consequently, premise 1 would not bar the possibility of minds requiring brains to exist and, therefore, this premise would not be admittedly sure as Descartes supposed. In the terminate, the conclusion is established with absolute certainty only when considered from within Descartes' own epistemological framework but loses its forcefulness if that framework turns out to be false or when evaluated from exterior of it.

These guaranteed truths express some very important points about Descartes' conception of mind and torso. Notice that mind and torso are divers every bit complete opposites. This means that the ideas of mind and body represent 2 natures that accept absolutely nothing in common. And, it is this complete variety that establishes the possibility of their contained existence. But, how tin Descartes make a legitimate inference from his independentunderstanding of mind and body as completely different things to their independentbeing? To answer this question, recall that every idea of limited or finite things contains the idea of possible or contingent existence, then Descartes is conceiving heed and body as possibly existing all by themselves without any other beast. Since there is no uncertainty about this possibility for Descartes and given the fact that God is all powerful, it follows that God could bring into existence a heed without a body and vice versa just equally Descartes clearly and distinctly understands them. Hence, the power of God makes Descartes' perceived logical possibility of minds existing without bodies into a metaphysical possibility. As a issue, minds without bodies and bodies without minds would require zippo besides God's concurrence to exist and, therefore, they are two really distinct substances.

The Second Version

The argument simply examined is formulated in a different way after in theSixth Meditation:

[T]here is a great difference between the heed and the torso, inasmuch equally the torso is by its very nature always divisible, while the listen is utterly indivisible. For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish whatever parts within myself; I empathise myself to be something quite single and complete….By dissimilarity, there is no corporeal or extended thing that I tin retrieve of which in my thought I cannot easily split into parts; and this very fact makes me understand that it is divisible. This one argument would exist enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body…. (AT VII 86-87: CSM II 59).

This statement can be reformulated as follows, replacing "heed" for "I" equally in the starting time version:

  1. I understand the mind to be indivisible by its very nature.
  2. I understand body to be divisible by its very nature.
  3. Therefore, the listen is completely dissimilar from the trunk.

Notice the conclusion that listen and body are actually distinct is non explicitly stated simply can exist inferred from 3. What is interesting almost this conception is how Descartes reaches his conclusion. He does non assert a articulate and distinct agreement of these two natures as completely unlike simply instead makes his signal based on a particular property of each. Yet, this is not just any belongings simply a property each has "by its very nature." Something'south nature is only what it is to be that kind of thing, and then the term "nature" is here being used every bit synonymous with "essence." On this account, extension constitutes the nature or essence of bodily kinds of things; while thinking constitutes the nature or essence of mental kinds of things. So, hither Descartes is arguing that a property of what information technology is to be a trunk, or extended thing, is to be divisible, while a property of what it is to be a listen or thinking thing is to be indivisible.

Descartes' line of reasoning in back up of these claims virtually the respective natures of mind and torso runs as follows. Showtime, it is easy to see that bodies are divisible. Just take any body, say a pencil or a piece of paper, and suspension it or cut information technology in half. Now yous have two bodies instead of one. Second, based on this line of reasoning, it is easy to encounter why Descartes believed his nature or mind to exist indivisible: if a heed or an "I" could be divided, so 2 minds or "I'due south" would result; but since this "I" merely is my self, this would be the aforementioned as claiming that the segmentation of my heed results in two selves, which is absurd. Therefore, the body is essentially divisible and the mind is essentially indivisible: but how does this atomic number 82 to the conclusion that they are completely dissimilar?

Here it should be noted that a departure in but any non-essential property would take only shown that mind and body are not exactly the same. But this is a much weaker claim than Descartes' conclusion that they are completely different. For two things could have the same nature, for example, extension, but have other, child-bearing properties or modes distinguishing them. Hence, these two things would be different in some respect, for example, in shape, merely not completely dissimilar, since both would still exist extended kinds of things. Consequently, Descartes needs their complete multifariousness to claim that he has completely independent conceptions of each and, in turn, that mind and body can exist independently of ane another.

Descartes can reach this stronger conclusion considering these essential properties are contradictories. On the one hand, Descartes argues that the mind is indivisible because he cannot perceive himself as having any parts. On the other hand, the torso is divisible because he cannot think of a trunk except every bit having parts. Hence, if listen and body had the same nature, it would be a nature both with and without parts. However such a thing is unintelligible: how could something both be separable into parts and yet non separable into parts? The answer is that it can't, so mind and body cannot be one and the same merely two completely different natures. Notice that, as with the outset version, mind and torso are hither being divers as opposites. This implies that divisible torso can be understood without indivisible heed and vice versa. Accordingly each can exist understood as existing all by itself: they are two really singled-out substances.

Withal, unlike the first version, Descartes does not invoke the doctrine of clear and distinct ideas to justify his bounds. If he had, this version, similar the offset, would exist absolutely certain from within Descartes' own epistemological organization. Just if removed from this apparatus, it is possible that Descartes is mistaken about the indivisibility of the heed, because the possibility of the mind requiring a encephalon to exist would even so exist viable. This would mean that, since extension is office of the nature of mind, it would, being an extended thing, be composed of parts and, therefore, it would be divisible. As a consequence, Descartes could not legitimately reach the conclusion that heed and body are completely different. This would also mean that the further, implicit determination that mind and torso are actually distinct could not exist reached either. In the finish, the main difficulty with Descartes' real distinction argument is that he has not fairly eliminated the possibility of minds existence extended things similar brains.

4. The Mind-Body Problem

The existent distinction of listen and body based on their completely diverse natures is the root of the famous mind-body trouble: how can these two substances with completely different natures causally collaborate so as to requite rising to a human being capable of having voluntary bodily motions and sensations? Although several versions of this problem take arisen over the years, this section will exist exclusively devoted to the version of it Descartes confronted as expressed by Pierre Gassendi, the author of theFifth Objections, and Descartes' contributor, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. Their business organisation arises from the claim at the centre of the real distinction argument that mind and body are completely different or opposite things.

The complete diversity of their respective natures has serious consequences for the kinds of modes each can possess. For case, in the2d Meditation, Descartes argues that he is nothing but a thinking thing or listen, that is, Descartes argues that he is a "thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and likewise imagines and has sensory perceptions" (AT Seven 28: CSM 2 xix). It makes no sense to ascribe such modes to entirely extended, non-thinking things like stones, and therefore, only minds can have these kinds of modes. Conversely, information technology makes no sense to ascribe modes of size, shape, quantity and motion to non-extended, thinking things. For example, the concept of an unextended shape is unintelligible. Therefore, a mind cannot exist understood to exist shaped or in move, nor tin a body empathise or sense anything. Human beings, notwithstanding, are supposed to be combinations of mind and body such that the mind'south choices tin can cause modes of motion in the trunk, and motions in certain bodily organs, such as the eye, crusade modes of sensation in the mind.

The heed's power to crusade move in the body will exist addressed commencement. Accept for example a voluntary choice, or willing, to enhance one'due south hand in class to inquire a question. The arm moving upward is the effect while the choice to raise it is the cause. But willing is a mode of the non-extended mind alone, whereas the arm's motion is a mode of the extended body alone: how tin can the not-extended mind bring about this extended effect? It is this problem of voluntary bodily movement or the so-called trouble of "mind to trunk causation" that so troubled Gassendi and Elizabeth. The crux of their concern was that in order for i thing to cause motion in some other, they must come up into contact with 1 another every bit, for instance, in the game of pool the cue ball must be in move and come into contact with the viii-ball in order for the latter to be set in motion. The problem is that, in the example of voluntarily bodily movements, contact between mind and body would be impossible given the mind's non-extended nature. This is considering contact must exist between ii surfaces, but surface is a mode of torso, as stated atPrinciples of Philosophy function II, section 15. Accordingly, the mind does not have a surface that can come into contact with the body and cause it to motion. And then, information technology seems that if mind and body are completely dissimilar, there is no intelligible explanation of voluntary bodily motion.

Although Gassendi and Elizabeth express themselves to the problem of voluntary actual motion, a similar trouble arises for sensations, or the so-called problem of "body to mind causation." For instance, a visual sensation of a tree is a mode of the mind solitary. The cause of this way would be explained by the motion of various imperceptible bodies causing parts of the eye to motion, so movements in the optic nerve, which in turn crusade various "animal spirits" to motion in the brain and finally result in the sensory idea of the tree in the listen. Simply how can the movement of the "animal spirits," which were idea to be very fine bodies, bring about the existence of a sensory idea when the listen is incapable of receiving modes of motility given its non-extended nature? Again, since the mind is incapable of having motion and a surface, no intelligible explanation of sensations seems possible either. Therefore, the completely different natures of mind and trunk seem to render their causal interaction incommunicable.

The consequences of this problem are very serious for Descartes, considering information technology undermines his claim to have a articulate and distinct understanding of the mind without the body. For humans exercise have sensations and voluntarily motion some of their bodily limbs and, if Gassendi and Elizabeth are correct, this requires a surface and contact. Since the mind must have a surface and a capacity for motion, the listen must besides exist extended and, therefore, mind and trunk are non completely different. This ways the "clear and singled-out" ideas of listen and torso, as mutually sectional natures, must be false in gild for heed-body causal interaction to occur. Hence, Descartes has non fairly established that mind and body are two really singled-out substances.

five. Descartes' Response to the Listen-Body Problem

Despite the obviousness of this problem, and the amount of attention given to it, Descartes himself never took this issue very seriously. His response to Gassendi is a telling example:

These questions presuppose amid other things an caption of the union between the soul and the body, which I take not still dealt with at all. Only I will say, for your do good at to the lowest degree, that the whole trouble independent in such questions arises simply from a assumption that is fake and cannot in any way exist proved, namely that, if the soul and the torso are two substances whose nature is different, this prevents them from being able to human action on each other (AT Seven 213: CSM 2 275).

So, Descartes' response to the mind-body problem is twofold. Get-go, Descartes contends that a response to this question presupposes an explanation of the wedlock between the mind (or soul) and the trunk. Second, Descartes claims that the question itself stems from the fake presupposition that two substances with completely different natures cannot human activity on each other. Further examination of these 2 points will occur in reverse order.

Descartes' principles of causation put forward in the3rd Meditation lie at the center of this second presupposition. The relevant portion of this give-and-take is when Descartes argues that the less real cannot cause something that is more existent, considering the less real does non take plenty reality to bring about something more existent than itself. This principle applies on the full general level of substances and modes. On this business relationship, an infinite substance, that is, God, is the well-nigh real thing because only he requires nothing else in order to exist; created, finite substances are next most existent, considering they crave only God'southward artistic and bourgeois activity in order to be; and finally, modes are the to the lowest degree existent, because they crave a created substance and an space substance in order to exist. Then, on this principle, a mode cannot cause the existence of a substance since modes are less real than finite substances. Similarly, a created, finite substance cannot cause the existence of an infinite substance. Just a finite substance can cause the existence of another finite substance or a fashion (since modes are less existent than substances). Hence, Descartes' point could be that the completely diverse natures of heed and trunk practice not violate this causal principle, since both are finite substances causing modes to exist in some other finite substance. This indicates farther that the "activity" of the mind on the body does not require contact and movement, thereby suggesting that mind and body do not bear a mechanistic causal relation to each other. More will be said about this below.

The start presupposition concerns an explanation of how the mind is united with the body. Descartes' remarks virtually this issue are scattered across both his published works and his private correspondence. These texts bespeak that Descartes did not maintain that voluntary bodily movements and sensation arise considering of the causal interaction of mind and body past contact and move. Rather, he maintains a version of the class-matter theory of soul-body union endorsed by some of his scholastic-Aristotelian predecessors and contemporaries. Although a close analysis of the texts in question cannot exist conducted here, a brief summary of how this theory works for Descartes can be provided.

Before providing this summary, however, information technology is important to disclaim that this scholastic-Aristotelian interpretation is a minority position amongst Descartes scholars. The traditional view maintains that Descartes' human beingness is composed of two substances that causally interact in a mechanistic way. This traditional view led some of Descartes' successors, such as Malebranche and Leibniz (who likewise believed in the real distinction of mind and body), to devise metaphysical systems wherein mind and trunk do not causally interact despite appearances to the contrary. Other philosophers considered the heed-body problem to exist insurmountable, thereby denying their existent distinction: they claim that everything is either extended (as is common nowadays) or mental (as George Berkeley argued in the 18th century). Indeed, this traditional, mechanistic estimation of Descartes is so deeply ingrained in the minds of philosophers today, that almost practise not even bother to argue for it. However, a notable exception is Marleen Rozemond, who argues for the incompatibility of Descartes' metaphysics with any scholastic-Aristotelian version of mind or soul-trunk union. Those interested in closely examining her arguments should consult her volumeDescartes's Dualism. A book arguing in favor of the scholastic-Aristotelian interpretation is entitledDescartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature; Chapter five specifically addresses Rozemond's concerns.

Two major stumbling blocks Rozemond raises for the scholastic-Aristotelian interpretation concern the heed's status as a substantial grade and the extent to which Descartes can maintain a form of the homo body. However, remember that Descartes rejects substantial forms because of their terminal causal component. Descartes' argument was based on the fact (equally he understood it) that the scholastics were ascribing mental properties to entirely not-mental things similar stones. Since the mind is an entirely mental affair, these arguments simply exercise non employ to information technology. Hence, Descartes' particular rejection of substantial forms does not necessarily imply that Descartes did not view the mind as a substantial form. Indeed, equally Paul Hoffman noted:

Descartes actually rejects the effort to use the human soul every bit a model for explanations in the entirely physical world. This makes it possible that Descartes considered the human being mind to be the simply substantial class. At first glance this may seemadvertizement hoc simply it is also of import to find that rejecting the existence of substantial forms with the exception of the mind or rational soul was non uncommon amongst Descartes' contemporaries.

Although the heed's condition as a substantial form may seem at risk because of its meager explicit textual support, Descartes suggests that the mind a "substantial form" twice in a typhoon of open letter to his enemy Voetius:

Yet, if the soul is recognized as just a substantial class, while other such forms consist in the configuration and motion of parts, this very privileged status it has compared with other forms shows that its nature is quite dissimilar from theirs (AT III 503: CSMK 207-208).

Descartes then remarks "this is confirmed by the example of the soul, which is the true substantial form of man" (AT Three 508: CSMK 208). Although other passages do non brand this merits explicitly, they exercise imply (in some sense) that the mind is a substantial grade. For case, Descartes claims in a letter to Mesland dated 9 Feb 1645, that the soul is "substantially united" with the human torso (AT IV 166: CSMK 243). This "substantial spousal relationship" was a technical term amongst the scholastics denoting the union between a substantial grade and affair to grade a complete substance. Consequently, there is some reason for believing that the homo mind is the only substantial course left standing in Descartes' metaphysics.

Another major stumbling block recognized past Rozemond is the extent to which, if any, Descartes' metaphysics can maintain a principle for organizing extension into a human body. This was a point of some controversy amongst the scholastics themselves. Philosophers maintaining a Thomistic position argued that the human being soul is the human body's principle of organisation. While others, maintaining a basically Scotistic position, argued that another form likewise the homo soul is the form of the body. This "grade of corporeity" organizes matter for the sake of being a human body merely does non consequence in a full-fledged human being being. Rather it makes a body with the potential for union with the human soul. The soul so actualizes this potential resulting in a complete human being. If Descartes did concord a fundamentally scholastic theory of mind-body union, so is it more Thomistic or Scotistic? Since intellect and will are the only faculties of the mind, it does not accept the faculty for organizing matter for beingness a human trunk. And then, if Descartes' theory is scholastic, it must be most in line with some version of the Scotistic theory. Rozemond argues that Descartes' rejection of all other substantial forms (except the human heed or soul) precludes this kind of theory since he cannot appeal to the doctrine of substantial forms similar the Scotists.

Although Descartes argues that bodies, in the full general sense, are constituted by extension, he as well maintains that species of bodies are determined by the configuration and movement of their parts. This doctrine of "configuration and motion of parts" serves the same purpose as the doctrine of substantial forms with regards to entirely concrete things. Just the primary deviation between the two is that Descartes' doctrine does not employ final causes. Think that substantial forms organize matter for the purpose of being a species of matter. The purpose of a homo body endowed with but the form of corporeity is wedlock with the soul. Hence, the arrangement of affair into a human being torso is an effect that is explained by the final crusade or purpose of being disposed for union. But, on Descartes' account, the explanatory order would be reversed: a human body's disposition for union is an upshot resulting from the configuration and motion of parts. So, even though Descartes does not have recourse to substantial forms, he withal has recourse to the configuration of affair and to the dispositions to which it gives ascension, including "all the dispositions required to preserve that wedlock" (AT IV 166: CSMK 243). Hence, on this account, Descartes gets what he needs, namely, Descartes gets a body properly configured for potential spousal relationship with the mind, but without recourse to the scholastic notion of substantial forms with their final causal component.

Another feature of this basically Scotistic position is that the soul and the body were considered incomplete substances themselves, while their union results in ane, complete substance. Surely Descartes maintains that listen and body are two substances but in what sense, if whatsoever, tin can they be considered incomplete? Descartes answers this question in theFourth Replies. He argues that a substance may be complete insofar every bit it is a substance but incomplete insofar as it is referred to some other substance together with which it forms yet some third substance. This can exist applied to heed and body as follows: the heed insofar equally it is a thinking thing is a consummate substance, while the body insofar as it is an extended affair is a complete substance, but each taken individually is only an incomplete homo.

This account is repeated in the following extract from a letter to Regius dated December 1641:

For there you said that the body and the soul, in relation to the whole human being, are incomplete substances; and it follows from their being incomplete that what they found is a being through itself (that is, anens per se; AT Iii 460: CSMK 200).

The technical sense of the term "existence through itself" was intended to capture the fact that human beings do not require whatever other creature but simply God's concurrence to exist. Appropriately, a being through itself, orens per se, is a substance. Also notice that the claim in the letter to Regius that two incomplete substances together constitute a existence through itself is reminiscent of Descartes' remarks in theFourth Replies. This affinity between the 2 texts indicates that the matrimony of mind and body results in one consummate substance or existence through itself. This only means that listen and torso are the metaphysical parts (mind and body are incomplete substances in this respect) that plant one, whole man beingness, which is a complete substance in its own right. Hence, a human is not the result of two substances causally interacting past means of contact and motility, equally Gassendi and Elizabeth supposed, simply rather they bear a relation of human action and say-so that results in 1, whole and complete substantial man beingness.

This sheds some light on why Descartes thought that an account of mind-body union would put Gassendi's and Elizabeth's concerns to rest: they misconceived the matrimony of mind and body as a mechanical relation when in fact information technology is a relation of act and authorization. This avoids Gassendi's and Elizabeth'due south version of this trouble. This aversion is accomplished by the fact that modes of voluntary motion (and sensations, by extrapolation) should be ascribed to a whole human being existence and non to the mind or the body taken individually. This is made apparent in a 21 May 1643 alphabetic character to Elizabeth where Descartes distinguishes between diverse "primitive notions." The most general are the notions of being, number, duration, and so on, which utilise to all conceivable things. He and then goes on to distinguish the notions of heed and torso:

Then, equally regards trunk in particular, we have but the notion of extension, which entails the notions of shape and motion; and as regards the soul on its own, nosotros have only the notion of thought, which includes the perceptions of the intellect and the inclinations of the volition (AT III 665: CSMK 218).

Here trunk and soul (or mind) are archaic notions and the notions of their corresponding modes are the notions "entailed past" or "included in" these primitives. Descartes so discusses the primitive notion of mind-body union:

Lastly, as regards the soul and the torso together, we have only the notion of their union, on which depends our notion of the soul'due south power to motility the body, and the torso'south power to act on the soul and crusade its sensations and passions (AT III 665: CSMK 218).

In lite of the immediately preceding lines, this indicates that voluntary bodily movements and sensations are not modes of the body alone, or the mind alone, but rather are modes of "the soul and the body together." This is at least partially confirmed in the following lines fromPrinciples, office I, commodity 48:

But nosotros also experience within ourselves certain other things, which must not exist referred either to the heed lone or to the body alone. These arises, equally will be made articulate in the appropriate identify, from the shut and intimate union of our mind with the body. This list includes, start, appetites similar hunger and thirds; secondly, the emotions or passions . . . (AT VIIIA 23: CSM I 209).

These texts point that the mind or soul is united with the body so as to requite rise to some other whole complete substance equanimous of these two metaphysical parts. And, moreover, this composite substance now has the capacity for having modes of its own, namely, modes of voluntary bodily movement and awareness, which neither the mind nor the body can have individually. So, voluntary bodily movements are not modes of the body alone caused by the mind, nor are sensations modes of the mind alone caused by the body. Rather, both are modes of a whole and complete human beingness. On this business relationship, it makes no sense to ask how the non-extended mind tin can come into contact with the body to crusade these modes. To inquire this would be to become off on the wrong foot entirely, since contact between these 2 completely diverse substances is non required for these modes to exist. Rather all that is necessary is for the listen to actualize the potential in a properly disposed homo body to class one, whole, human being to whom is attributed modes of voluntary motility and sensation.

Although the scholastic-Aristotelian interpretation avoids the traditional causal interaction problem based on the requirements of contact and movement, it does run up against another version of that problem, namely, a problem of formal causation. This is a problem facing whatever scholastic-Aristotelian theory of listen or soul-body union where the soul is understood to exist an immaterial substantial form. Recall that the immaterial mind or soul as substantial form is suppose to human action on a properly disposed human body in gild to result in a full-fledged man. The problem of formal causal interaction is: how can an immaterial soul equallysubstantial form human action on the potential in a material thing? Can whatsoever sense exist made of the merits that a non-extended or immaterial things acts on anything? Descartes noticed in a letter to Regius (AT Three 493: CSMK 206) that the scholastics did not endeavour to respond this question and and then he and Regius need not either. The probable caption of their silence is that the human action-potency relation was considered admittedly fundamental to scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy and, therefore, it required no further explanation. So, in the terminate, even if Descartes' theory is as described here, it does not evade all the causal issues associated with uniting immaterial souls or mind to their corresponding bodies. , Even so, if this proposed business relationship is truthful, it helps to cast Descartes' philosophy in a new lite and to redirect the attention of scholars to the formal causal bug involved.

six. References and Further Reading

Primary Sources

  • Descartes, Rene,Ouevres de Descartes, xi vols., eds. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Paris: Vrin, 1974-1989.
    • This is still the standard edition of all of Descartes' works and correspondence in their original languages. Cited in the text as AT, volume, page.
  • Descartes, Rene,The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, three vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch and Anthony Kenny, Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing, 1984-1991
    • This is the standard English translation of Descartes philosophical works and correspondence. Cited in the text as CSM or CSMK, volume, page.

Secondary Sources

  • Broughton, Janet and Mattern, Ruth, "Reinterpreting Descartes on the Notion of the Matrimony of Mind and Body,"Journal of the History of Philosophy 16 (1978), 23-32.
    • A reinterpretation of the notion of listen-body matrimony in the correspondence with Elizabeth, which addresses Radner'southward interpretation of it. Run into below.
  • Garber, Daniel, "Agreement Interaction: What Descartes Should Have Told Elizabeth,"Southern Journal of Philosophy, Supp. 21 (1983), 15-32.
    • Commodity addressing the problems of the primitive notions and how this theory should be used to explicate mind-torso causal interaction to Elizabeth.
  • Hoffman, Paul, "The Unity of Descartes' Man,"The Philosophical Review 95 (1986), 339-369.
    • Article arguing that Descartes' theory of mind-body union is more in line with scholastic-Aristotelian theories of soul-body union than previously supposed.
  • Kenny, Anthony,Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy, New York: Random House, 1968. Meet especially chapters 4 and 10.
    • These chapters provide classic interpretations of the real distinction betwixt mind and body and the mind-body problem.
  • Mattern, Ruth, "Descartes' Correspondence with Elizabeth Concerning both the Union and Distinction of Mind and Body" inDescartes: Disquisitional and Interpretive Essays, ed. Michael Hooker, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1978, 212-222.
    • Short essay examining Descartes' correspondence with Elizabeth on this effect and how information technology was supposed to direct her to a right agreement of mind-body causal interaction.
  • Radner, Daisie, "Descartes' Notion of the Union of Mind and Trunk,"Journal of the History of Philosophy ix (1971), 159-170.
    • This is the first article in Anglo-American scholarship to address the issue of listen-torso marriage. It addresses several texts, including the letter to Elizabeth enumerating the primitive notions.
  • Rozemond, Marleen,Descartes's Dualism, Cambridge: Harvard Academy Press, 1998.
    • This book argues for a particular understanding of the existent distinction between mind and body that would prevent Hoffman's scholastic-Aristotelian account of their union.
  • Skirry, Justin,Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature, London and New York: Thoemmes-Continuum Press, 2005.
    • This book takes issue with Rozemond'due south account of the mind-body matrimony through a close re-examination of central features of Descartes' metaphysics and by building on sure features of Hoffman'south account.
  • Voss, Stephen, "Descartes: The End of Anthropology" inReason, Will and Sensation, ed. John Cottingham, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
    • This essay provides a close textual analysis of Descartes' account of the union of mind and body on the supposition that he maintained a Platonic rather than scholastic-Aristotelian theory of mind-body union.
  • Williams, Bernard,Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978. Run into especially chapter 4.
    • This is another classic account of the heed-body relation in Descartes.
  • Wilson, Margaret,Descartes, London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
    • Provides classic accounts of the real distinction argument and bug concerning mind-body causal interaction.

Author Data

Justin Skirry
Email: jskirry@yahoo.com
U. South. A.