Compare And Contrast Searle And Descartes

Searle and Descartes being separated by nearly four centuries provides a rough landscape for a philosophical discussion to be conducted upon. Both Searle and Descartes have inherent biases based upon their location on the timeline, Searle with modern science and Descartes with religion and the church. Being that the two are opposed, I think that Searle is able to articulate effectively his positions and respond to Descartes’ claims properly. If positioned at the same location along the timeline and granted the knowledge that Searle possess, I think that Descartes, assuming he had an open mind, would agree with Searle’s propositions and subsequent conclusion. Descartes prefaces his real-distinction argument by restoring the idea of a just god, therefore the idea of an …show more content…
He begins his argument by claiming that the mind and the body are two distinct and incompatible things. Descartes states that minds are non-extended and thinking, but on the contrary, bodies are extended and non-thinking. This leads Descartes to believe that the mind and body are incompatible with each other, given that the mind and the body have different properties. So, if the mind and the body are incompatible and have different properties, then the mind and the body must therefore be distinct from each other, leading Descartes to his conclusion. Although Descartes leaves many weak spots in his argument, Searle chooses probably the most difficult position to articulate. Searle attempts to explain why Descartes’ argument of mind-body distinction is not really an argument at all and that the two traditional default positions of the argument, materialism and dualism, are not accurate representations as to what the real problem is and should be discarded. Searle’s purpose is to destroy any remaining idea of Cartesian dualism and introduce a much better way of thinking about how humans are, a refutation of the default positions and a transition to a more comprehensive view on the