ON THE NATURE OF THE MIND AND BODY
Two of the major constants in our lives is that we have a mind and a
body. What are the mind and body? Are they connected or are they
separate? These are questions that have been asked by many a man and
philosopher. Descartes was one philosopher who tried to tackle this mind
body problem. He believed they are separate substances and his stance is
called
dualism. I will attempt an analysis of his belief of dualism and
give some of the arguments of philosophers like Shaffer, Spinoza and
Broad.
In Descartes sixth meditation from Meditations on First Philosophy, he
states his belief on the mind body issue. Descartes believed that the
mind and body were separate substances. The notion of a substance to
Descartes, was that which can exist independently of anything else. He
believed that there is only one infinite substance which is god, but the
mind and body are finite substances. Descartes believed that finite
substances needed only God to exist. These two finite substances were
the corporeal substance (the body) and the thinking substance (the
mind).
Descartes also stated that we all know that the body is observable and
measurable. The mind on the other hand is not directly observable other
than the person who owns it. Also, since the body is extended in three
dimensional space, it can be divided into specific parts, the mind
however does not occupy space and cannot be divided. The nature of the
body according to Descartes was that, unlike the mind it was divisible.
"There is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is
by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible."1
