Rene Descartes Personal Identity Essay

Personal identity is the concept in which you develop your own sense of self over time. In a philosophical sense, personal identity theory is asking yourself, who am I, why do I exist? These questions have been thought of and discussed throughout history by philosophers who have searched for the answer about the actions and nature of the human being. The philosophy of personal identity has addressed the matter of the human beings existence and how we exist throughout time. When you ask yourself if you are the same person you have always been is actually a matter of persistence. How do we know we persist throughout our lifetime? To answer these questions we can look at the great works of Rene Descartes. Rene Descartes proposed we persist because …show more content…
Matter conforms to the laws of physics with the important exception of the human body, which Descartes believed is affected by the mind and produces mental events. For example, if you are willing to raise your hand then it will raise, whereas being hit by a hammer on your foot causes the mind to feel pain. This is another example of Descartes theory known as interactionism, which raises the question of how causal interaction is possible. Furthermore, as I’ve mentioned before, Descartes distinguishes between the mind and body. He does so by making a distinction between two or more substances. Secondly, a real substance is clear when one substance is understood by the other, keeping in mind Descartes believes a substance is something that requires nothing to exist. Thirdly, this clear understanding shows that God can bring anything understood.Therefore, Descartes is arguing that one, the mind is a substance, two, it can be distinct without any other substance including the body, and lastly, that God could created the substance without any other substance