Rene Descartes Concept Of Dualism

Dualism, which is described on page 94, “holds that what exists is either physical or mental (“spiritual”); some things, such as a human person, have both a physical component (a physical body) and a mental component (a mind).” Descartes was an incredibly important figure in history and is said to have begun the age of modern philosophy (page 96). He created the famous phrase of “I think, therefore I am” when he was looking for “a measure of certainty that escapes even the most incredible and bizarre possibilities of falsehood” (page 98). The reason why he needed to figure this out was that, even though he did not consider himself a Skeptic, he saw it as his “lifelong intention to formulate a unified science of nature that was as fully certain …show more content…
Descartes uses his Clear and Distinct Criterion to make the claim that God exists and “that God would not deceive the thinking mind with perceptions of an external world - a world of objects outside the mind – if such did not exist” (page 99). Through this conclusion, Descartes discovers his version of dualism. The way Descartes sees things is that there are “two separate and distinct substances, and reality has a dual nature” (page 99). The first substance is the material substance which is the substance that occupies space. Then there is the mind which is the substance of thought and occupies no space. They way Descartes describes “thought” as a substance is because he believes that a substance “requires nothing other than itself to exist” (page 100). However, there were contradictions and problems with Descartes’ metaphysical dualism. One of these contradictions was that Descartes believed that material things “are completely subject to physical laws” (page 100). However, he also believed that our mind can move our body. Thus, there is a contradiction because the mind would not constitute a physical law as it is immaterial. Therefore, you cannot separate the immaterial mind from the body because it is only the control that we obtain …show more content…
For example, no other person but yourself can prove that your thoughts and/or dreams exist. Only you can say they exist and you most likely won’t remember those thoughts in the same way twice. Therefore, while I believe that thoughts exist within our head, I do not believe that you could call them a substance of reality. Do you agree with Descartes statement about what a substance is? If you have your own definition I would gladly like to hear it, as this is something that interested me