Cartesian Substance Dualism

In this paper I will be explaining and evaluating Argument 2, on page 36 of Jaegwon Kim's Philosophy of Mind, which supports Cartesian substance dualism. This argument, which I call the argument of transparency, attempts to support the first major tenant of Cartesian substance dualism:
There are substances of two fundamentally different kinds in the world, mental substances and material substances—or minds and bodies. The essential nature of a mind is to think, be conscious, and engage in other mental activities; the essence of a body is to have spatial extensions (a bulk) and be located in space. (Kim 34)
First, I will explain the argument of transparency and the components necessary to understand the argument. Then I will present the merits of the argument and the problems with the argument. Finally I will prove how the argument of transparency does not successfully establish Cartesian substance dualism. …show more content…
The doctrine “transparency of the mind” claims that no mental state can exist in our minds without our knowing, being aware, that it exists (Kim 20). For example, if I am in the mental state of pain, I will know I am in the mental state of pain. My mental state of pain is not hidden from my awareness of it. Premise (i) claims the mind is transparent, as mental states within the mind are transparent. Premise (ii) claims that physical states are not transparent in the way mental states are. It is unclear whether the premise implies that there is no physical transparency. That is to say that physical states may indeed be transparent, however transparency may not be a property of all physical states. Whether physical states do not have transparency, or their transparency does not hold for all physical states, this difference in the transparency property means, as premise (iii) claims, my mind is not identical with my