Week 9 Res Cogitans and Dualism

Question 1

Doubt (Descartes)

Answer 1

I can doubt whether I have a body, but I cannot doubt that I am or exist.

This argument, though, is invalid (see Arnauld’s objection CSM II: 139).

From the fact that I doubt that something possesses a given property it doesn’t follow that this very thing lacks it.

Question 2

The argument from clear

and distinct perceptions

Answer 2

The arguments which should prove the immateriality of the soul is known as the “Argument for Clear and

Distinct Perceptions”.

I can clearly and distinctly perceive the mind apart from body (see fifth meditation).
Arnauld suggested that this argument is similar to the doubt argument (see CSM II: 142).

Question 3

Arnauld’s argument

Answer 3

One can clearly and distinctly perceive that a triangle has a right angle and yet not clearly and distinctly perceive that it has the Pythagorean property. But even God could not create a right-angled triangle which lacks it.

Descartes’ reply consists in arguing that neither the triangle nor its property can be seen as a complete thing, while the mind and the body must.

A complete thing is a substance that can exist on its own.

Since in my thinking I can conceive the mind/soul to subsist independently of physical properties it is perfectly conceivable that God created my thinking substance without creating the physical ones.

Hence the physical attributes do not belong to the essence of the soul/mind.

The concept of mind is complete insofar as one is aware of one’s thinking. And this is sufficient for one to exist with this attribute and this alone. Thinking is the only necessary property of the mind.

Question 4

The Divisibility Argument

Answer 4

The mind and body are mutually exclusive. Being extended the body can be divided while the mind is indivisible.

Question 5

The immortality of the soul

Answer 5

Main Argument
Phase one

Prem. 1: If I can clearly and distinctly understand A apart from B and B apart from A, then God could have created one without the other, and A cannot depend on B for its existence, or B on A.

Prem. 2: I can clearly and distinctly understand myself as a thinking thing apart from body, and a body as an extended thing apart from thought.
Preliminary Conclusion: God could have created my mind in such a way that it does not depend on any body.

Phase two

Prem. 3: God could have created my mind in such a way that it does not depend on any body.

Prem. 4: If A could have been created to be independent of B, A can exist when B no longer exists.

Prem. 5: When I am dead, my body (as such) will no longer exist.
Conclusion: I can exist when my body is dead.
This does not prove, though, that the Soul survives after the death. It merely proves that it can survive it.

Critique
(Cf. Duns Scotus) Some predicates can be conceived apart from one another and, yet, they cannot exist apart from one another:
E.g.: divine justice and divine mercy; it is impossible for God to be just and not merciful as it is impossible for Him to be merciful without also being just.

Reply
For it to be the case that we can understand two things distinctly and separately, they must really be entities in their own right.

Question 6

Imagination

Answer 6

The ability to employ imagination suggests the presence of the body. If there can be thought without imagination, as Descartes suggests, there can be thought without a body.

Imagination, like perception, is not essential to a subject. Thus, if the souls is immortal it does not involve imagination and perception; it merely requires intellectual understanding.

Question 7

The Mind-Body divide

Answer 7

Descartes’ Aim
To prove that the mind and the body are

1. real subjects
2. numerically distinct entities
3. can exist without the other

Question 8

Identity

Answer 8

Leibniz’s Law and the Identity of Indiscernibles
Leibniz’s law
a = b  (F) (Fa  Fb)
If a and b are identical then each property of a must also be a property of b and vice versa.

Question 9

Identity of indiscernibles

leibniz

Answer 9

(F) (Fa  Fb)  a = b

This is the converse of Leibniz’s law and states that if every property of a is also a property of b and vice versa (i.e. there is no discernible difference between them), then a and b are identical.
If a and b have all properties in common, then a and b are identical.

Thus.
If MIND and BODY have all properties in 
common, then MIND = BODY
If MIND and BODY differ in some 
property, then MIND  BODY

Question 10

Mind vs. Body: an

Epistemological Distinction

Answer 10

The mind (x) and the body (y) are distinct
=df.
x and y are distinct insofar as x and/or y
can be conceived/understood without
each other.

Question 11

Criterion for Distinctness: Clear and Distinct Ideas

Answer 11

Descartes’ criterion of distinctiveness is epistemological.

Yet, since clear and distinct ideas must reflect the true nature of things, distinct ideas reflect distinct substances.

Question 12

Direct Mental Apprehension

Answer 12

Descartes’ account of knowledge is thus based on direct mental apprehension.

Mental intuition goes proxy for mental acquaintance or grasping.

In discussing the “action of the intellect by means of which we are able to arrive to the knowledge of things with no fear of mistake” (Rules for the Direction of the Mind; CSM I: 14), Descartes recognizes two intellectual actions: intuition and deduction.

Question 13

Arnauld’s Challenge

Answer 13

Arnauld objects that one cannot go from the subjective fact to an objective fact.

That is, one cannot infer from her subjective state of certainty or uncertainty concerning a given fact, to the objective certainty or uncertainty concerning the fact itself.

Thus one cannot, pace Descartes, infer from the fact that one is certain about the distinction between one’s mind and body, to the fact that the mind and the body are in fact/in reality distinct.

Question 14

Arnauld’s argument

Answer 14

It is not possible for (triangle) T to exist without P (the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides)

Question 15

The Union Between Mind and Body

Answer 15

I am not merely present in my body as a
sailor is present in a ship, but that I am very
closely joined and, as it were, intermingled
with it, so that I and the body form a unit. If this
were not so, I, who am nothing but a thinking
thing, would not feel pain when the body was
hurt, but would perceive the damage purely by
the intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight if
anything in the ship is broken. … These
sensations of hunger, thirst, pain and so on are
nothing but confused modes of thinking which
arise from the union and, as it were,
intermingling of the mind with the body. (Sixth
Meditation; CSM II: 56)

Question 16

Sameness of Body

Answer 16

Existence thorough time: our body keeps changing, yet it is the same as the one we got in our infancy.

That remains the same, though, are not the qualitative
properties but its numerical identity. The latter is
granted by the soul. The numerical identity of one’s
body rests on the identity of one’s mind.

Question 17

Descartes’ Error

Answer 17

Feelings (cf. Damasio. 1994. Descartes’ Error)

It is wrong to consider the working of the brain and mind as separate from the working of the body.

The mind is part and parcel of the body.
E.g.: background feelings, i.e. the underlying awareness of the state that your body is in.

Question 18

Peptides

Answer 18

Are neurotransmitters produced in the brain.
They are also active in the human immune system and
endocrine system.

Hence, they participate in the constant relationship
between the brain and the body