Comparing Descarte's Distinction Between Mind And Body

Descarte begins by making two very clear distinctions between the body and the mind. The mind is a nonmaterial essence that can exist without the body and will last forever. In contrast the essence of material things like the body are extend things that are void of the capacity to think. He defines the body as a mode of himself. He upholds that all he knows for sure is that he is a thinking thing and that thinking is the only thing that makes him exist. So nothing else can be identified with him, for example the body. According to him the body does not confirm that a person exist because you can doubt you are an extended thing but surely it is impossible to doubt that you are a thing that thinks. Why does Decarte want to make such a clear …show more content…
Descarte believes that humans specifically have a combination of mind and body where the mind is in control of certain body organs. We can observe that the connection between our mind and body is very close because of sensations and emotions we experience. Senses trigger the mind to reason, Descarte notices that the ideas he had himself about thing were not as explicit as they are when he perceives them through the sense faculty (his body). The feelings of hunger, pain or thirst are merely confused ways of thinking that are dependent of the union between the mind and body. Since all we know for sure is that we are thinking things, proof that we are connected to the body is in the way we feel these things, another example is pain. Being mingled with the body lets me know I am in pain since all the mind can tell me is that there is pain, my body allows me to feel it. If we abandon the union of mind and body then we couldn’t experience the whole. That is to say, for example, we could experience or taste sweetness without the bodies