Descartes Material World

Descartes’ view on the material world begins with him defining himself as a thinking substance and God as a perfect substance. Without any real justification, while in the process of thinking, there are a variety of different modes working. If he could not say that thinking things exist, then how could he say in what form thinking things exist if had suspended belief in everything? He was unsure. Continued by stating that the mind, the soul, and man’s entirety, merely uses the body, so it can continue to exist without it. Descartes not only successfully separated mind and body one from another, but had also separated both from God. Coming up with two substances: that mind is a substance whose essential property is thinking, and matter is a substance whose essential property is being extended. That …show more content…
He was trying to achieve an infallible system of acquiring knowledge, through his intentions of a radical deconstruction and at some later stage, begin the process of renovation. For Leibniz, Descartes’ substantial dualism failed to establish an acceptable understanding of existence and the nature of human being. The Cartesian conclusion left us with the impasse of trying to explain exactly how they could act together either in human existence or in the notion of God.

Leibniz’ view of reality was complex, and that which is complex is made up from that which is simple, they must be sub-divided until it can no longer be divided. What he was left with was the simplest part of existence which is unextended because it could no longer be divided. And if, according to Descartes, the principle of material forms is extension, the simple units