According to a simple Google search, I found the definition of Philosophy to be “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline” or literally speaking, to be the “love of wisdom.” Now not in a second would I ever consider myself to be wise, but I’ve always had an interest in the discipline, specifically in the distinction (or lack of) between mind and body. The separation of mind and body has been argued between many philosophers such as Descartes, Ryle, Stent, Aristotle and others . After many RedBulls and articles, I discovered from my research the different theories and counter arguments and reached my own conclusion on the subject.
I would say my interest in philosophy began when I was a freshman in high school. My brother had just started our school’s Philosophy Club and due to biological relation to the president, I was required to attend. As I sat and listened to the seemingly wise seniors discuss heavy topics such as “does God exist?” and “is life predetermined or free-willed?” I was overwhelmed by the hypothetical theories and thoughts. Though I was a very perplexed, it was a pleasant confusion in which I wanted to alleviate.
While here at TCU I was fortunate enough to take an introductory philosophy class in where I could learn more. While covering many arguments and theories, one in particular that stood out was Descartes’ 6th Meditation on the separation of mind and body. Through this essay I was able to pursue this fascination further and the remainder of this paper will explain what I found.
I first started with Rene Descartes’ 6th Meditation in which he provides his theory on the separation of mind and body. Descartes was a Dualist, meaning he believed the mind and body were separate substances. His argument on why this was true was simple.
The Conceivability Argument goes like this: 1) You CAN’T doubt that you have a mind (for when you doubt that you have a mind, you are using your mind to doubt that you have a mind). 2) You CAN doubt that you have a body (for we can’t absolutely prove that this world our body interacts with is real). 3) Then we use Leibniz’s Law, which states for any 2 things, if they have identical properties, they are the same thing. 4) THEREFORE since the mind and body have different properties stated in premises 1 & 2 (in which one can be doubted and the other can’t), they are separate substances (Descartes 205-213).
After examining Descartes’ argument, I was impressed by the simplicity and the sound logic of the argument. However I was still not sold that the mind and body were two distinct substances. After additional investigation I discovered an argument that proved Descartes’ to be false.
The argument uses the Conceivability Argument formula to show that it is faulty. This is called reduction ad absurdum in which you prove a statement wrong through contradiction. Here’s the contradiction: 1) I can’t doubt that water is water. 2) I can doubt that water is H2O (for all we know it could be H3O). 3) Leibniz’s Law (see above). 4) THEREFORE water & H2O are separate substances. Obviously this is completely false so this proves Descartes’ argument to be invalid (Balog 501).
I found this contradiction to be very surprising on how easily it proved Descartes wrong. To hit the point even further home I then stumbled onto Descartes’ Myth by Gilbert Ryle which also argues how Descartes’ reasoning is not so sound on a different level, a conceptual level. At first I struggled with this article, failing to grasp its true meaning, but finally I reached a conclusion.
Descartes’ Myth was a challenge to Descartes’ theory on the mind and body. Gilbert’s materialist response argues how ridiculous this theory is. Gilbert argues that Descartes makes a “categorical mistake” in his theory. The mistake Descartes makes is that he is trying to compare body and mind which are completely different conceptual entities and shouldn’t be associated. One example Ryle uses to illustrate his point is through a University. In this example a “foreigner” is being shown around a campus. On the campus the “foreigner” is shown the library, fields, museum, and such. Afterwards, the “foreigner” asks “But where is the University?” The error the “foreigner” makes is that the University is not another building you can be shown. The University encompasses it all and cannot be categorized with the other buildings. When you translate this example back to the original subject of mind and body, Ryle is saying that the two entities are of two different categories and can’t be compatible or comparable. For when you meet a person, you meet the mind and body, not two different subjects (Ryle 290-291).
After researching Ryle’s argument, I found his criticism of the argument to be valid (and confusing). Yet I could not find a true opposition theory, only critiques to Descartes’ argument. After investigating further, I found a more modern article called The Mind and Body Problem Today by Gabriel Vacariu. Here I did not find a clear alternative, but I did find more evidence backing Ryle’s confusing accusation of Descartes’ Categorical Mistake.
Vacariu agrees with Ryle concerning the categorical mistake. He writes “The fatal consequence for Descartes was that he allocated the mind and body (two ontologically different substances) to the same entity, a human subject” (Vacariu 27). However Vacariu goes on to say the problem with the argument is not necessarily a category mistake but also that maybe the frame work of the theory is the problem. Varaciu states the new framework, “Under different conditions of observation, the human subject observes epistemologically different worlds” (Varaciu 27). By this Varaciu means that when a person looks at the separation of mind and body, he view form two different worlds. One world would be the mental world in which his mentally observes and introspects. He can also observe through the other world, a tangible one where he can observe physically, through feeling and taste (Vacariu 27).
After being convinced so many times of how Descartes’ argument was somehow invalid, I began the quest to find a valid opposition to Dualism, Monism. Where I examined monism was within Gunther Stent’s Epistemic Dualism of Mind and Body. Stent is a Dualist but in his paper he states Aristotle’s and other monist’s anti-dualist counter arguments before going into the body of his paper.
Aristotle was a monist believing that the mind and body were one in the same. Stent puts it this way, “Plato’s student, Arisotle, advocated the anti-dualist doctrine of monism, according to which mental phenomena are nothing other than bodily functions.” He continues “Aristotle located mental functions in the heart, a belief that still survives in modern language and ritual” (Stent 578). Aristotle was one of the founders of monism believing that mental functions stemmed from the body and not some separate existential, conceptual space. Later the Greek surgeon Galen discovered the brain “[was] the seat of consciousness and sensations” and that mental states came from the brain which propelled the monist view. More recent discoveries in neuroscience have all but banished most modern dualist thought (Stent 579).
After reviewing all of the wordy and intricate papers I reached my conclusion. I found the monist view of that mind and body are the same to present the most logical and plausible argument. Descartes’ theory, though brilliant, has too many holes and errors to it. It was proved to be flawed wrong through the reduction ad absurdum and having a categorical mistake. Aristotle and Galen were able to find links between the brain and consciousness and mental states proving that the mind and body were of the same substance and correlated.
Author’s Notes
I’m afraid my explanations of the theories may not be accessible enough, especially Vacariu’s argument. The paper’s still a little short and I’m trying to find out where I can go into more depth to help make sense of it all. I think my introduction works well but my conclusion needs a little work.
I would say my interest in philosophy began when I was a freshman in high school. My brother had just started our school’s Philosophy Club and due to biological relation to the president, I was required to attend. As I sat and listened to the seemingly wise seniors discuss heavy topics such as “does God exist?” and “is life predetermined or free-willed?” I was overwhelmed by the hypothetical theories and thoughts. Though I was a very perplexed, it was a pleasant confusion in which I wanted to alleviate.
While here at TCU I was fortunate enough to take an introductory philosophy class in where I could learn more. While covering many arguments and theories, one in particular that stood out was Descartes’ 6th Meditation on the separation of mind and body. Through this essay I was able to pursue this fascination further and the remainder of this paper will explain what I found.
I first started with Rene Descartes’ 6th Meditation in which he provides his theory on the separation of mind and body. Descartes was a Dualist, meaning he believed the mind and body were separate substances. His argument on why this was true was simple.
The Conceivability Argument goes like this: 1) You CAN’T doubt that you have a mind (for when you doubt that you have a mind, you are using your mind to doubt that you have a mind). 2) You CAN doubt that you have a body (for we can’t absolutely prove that this world our body interacts with is real). 3) Then we use Leibniz’s Law, which states for any 2 things, if they have identical properties, they are the same thing. 4) THEREFORE since the mind and body have different properties stated in premises 1 & 2 (in which one can be doubted and the other can’t), they are separate substances (Descartes 205-213).
After examining Descartes’ argument, I was impressed by the simplicity and the sound logic of the argument. However I was still not sold that the mind and body were two distinct substances. After additional investigation I discovered an argument that proved Descartes’ to be false.
The argument uses the Conceivability Argument formula to show that it is faulty. This is called reduction ad absurdum in which you prove a statement wrong through contradiction. Here’s the contradiction: 1) I can’t doubt that water is water. 2) I can doubt that water is H2O (for all we know it could be H3O). 3) Leibniz’s Law (see above). 4) THEREFORE water & H2O are separate substances. Obviously this is completely false so this proves Descartes’ argument to be invalid (Balog 501).
I found this contradiction to be very surprising on how easily it proved Descartes wrong. To hit the point even further home I then stumbled onto Descartes’ Myth by Gilbert Ryle which also argues how Descartes’ reasoning is not so sound on a different level, a conceptual level. At first I struggled with this article, failing to grasp its true meaning, but finally I reached a conclusion.
Descartes’ Myth was a challenge to Descartes’ theory on the mind and body. Gilbert’s materialist response argues how ridiculous this theory is. Gilbert argues that Descartes makes a “categorical mistake” in his theory. The mistake Descartes makes is that he is trying to compare body and mind which are completely different conceptual entities and shouldn’t be associated. One example Ryle uses to illustrate his point is through a University. In this example a “foreigner” is being shown around a campus. On the campus the “foreigner” is shown the library, fields, museum, and such. Afterwards, the “foreigner” asks “But where is the University?” The error the “foreigner” makes is that the University is not another building you can be shown. The University encompasses it all and cannot be categorized with the other buildings. When you translate this example back to the original subject of mind and body, Ryle is saying that the two entities are of two different categories and can’t be compatible or comparable. For when you meet a person, you meet the mind and body, not two different subjects (Ryle 290-291).
After researching Ryle’s argument, I found his criticism of the argument to be valid (and confusing). Yet I could not find a true opposition theory, only critiques to Descartes’ argument. After investigating further, I found a more modern article called The Mind and Body Problem Today by Gabriel Vacariu. Here I did not find a clear alternative, but I did find more evidence backing Ryle’s confusing accusation of Descartes’ Categorical Mistake.
Vacariu agrees with Ryle concerning the categorical mistake. He writes “The fatal consequence for Descartes was that he allocated the mind and body (two ontologically different substances) to the same entity, a human subject” (Vacariu 27). However Vacariu goes on to say the problem with the argument is not necessarily a category mistake but also that maybe the frame work of the theory is the problem. Varaciu states the new framework, “Under different conditions of observation, the human subject observes epistemologically different worlds” (Varaciu 27). By this Varaciu means that when a person looks at the separation of mind and body, he view form two different worlds. One world would be the mental world in which his mentally observes and introspects. He can also observe through the other world, a tangible one where he can observe physically, through feeling and taste (Vacariu 27).
After being convinced so many times of how Descartes’ argument was somehow invalid, I began the quest to find a valid opposition to Dualism, Monism. Where I examined monism was within Gunther Stent’s Epistemic Dualism of Mind and Body. Stent is a Dualist but in his paper he states Aristotle’s and other monist’s anti-dualist counter arguments before going into the body of his paper.
Aristotle was a monist believing that the mind and body were one in the same. Stent puts it this way, “Plato’s student, Arisotle, advocated the anti-dualist doctrine of monism, according to which mental phenomena are nothing other than bodily functions.” He continues “Aristotle located mental functions in the heart, a belief that still survives in modern language and ritual” (Stent 578). Aristotle was one of the founders of monism believing that mental functions stemmed from the body and not some separate existential, conceptual space. Later the Greek surgeon Galen discovered the brain “[was] the seat of consciousness and sensations” and that mental states came from the brain which propelled the monist view. More recent discoveries in neuroscience have all but banished most modern dualist thought (Stent 579).
After reviewing all of the wordy and intricate papers I reached my conclusion. I found the monist view of that mind and body are the same to present the most logical and plausible argument. Descartes’ theory, though brilliant, has too many holes and errors to it. It was proved to be flawed wrong through the reduction ad absurdum and having a categorical mistake. Aristotle and Galen were able to find links between the brain and consciousness and mental states proving that the mind and body were of the same substance and correlated.
Author’s Notes
I’m afraid my explanations of the theories may not be accessible enough, especially Vacariu’s argument. The paper’s still a little short and I’m trying to find out where I can go into more depth to help make sense of it all. I think my introduction works well but my conclusion needs a little work.