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Cartesian Dualism
Real Distinction Argument
P1.
P2.
P3.
P4.
C.
Whatever can be clearly and distinctly conceived
apart can exist apart.
Whatever can exist apart are necessarily distinct
from one another.
I can clearly and distinctly conceive my mind apart
from my body.
Therefore, my mind can exist apart from my body.
----------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, my mind is necessarily distinct from my
body.
Real Distinction Argument
P1.
P2.
P3.
P4.
C.
Whatever can be clearly and distinctly conceived
apart can exist apart.
Whatever can exist apart are necessarily distinct
from one another.
I can clearly and distinctly conceive my mind apart
from my body.
Therefore, my mind can exist apart from my body.
----------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, my mind is necessarily distinct from my
body.
A way of talking about the possibility of separation even where
there is no such actual separation.
Real Distinction Argument
P1.
P2.
P3.
P4.
C.
Whatever can be clearly and distinctly conceived
apart can exist apart.
Whatever can exist apart are necessarily distinct
from one another.
I can clearly and distinctly conceive my mind apart
from my body.
Therefore, my mind can exist apart from my body.
----------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, my mind is necessarily distinct from my
body.
A consequence of the necessity of the non-separability of
identical things.
Real Distinction Argument
P1.
P2.
P3.
P4.
C.
Whatever can be clearly and distinctly conceived
apart can exist apart.
Whatever can exist apart are necessarily distinct
from one another.
I can clearly and distinctly conceive my mind apart
from my body.
Therefore, my mind can exist apart from my body.
----------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, my mind is necessarily distinct from my
body.
A conclusion that Descartes reached in Meditations 1, 2.
Real Distinction Argument
(Deriving the 3rd Premiss)




He can’t be certain that bodies exist because the evidence for
them is merely sensory, and the senses can be deceived.
The same possibility of error does not exist for the claim that his
mind exists. (‘Cogito ergo sum’.)
So he exists as a thinking thing. But are mind and body distinct?
Consider their essences.
 The example of wax: the essence of the wax is extension
(occupying space) and is known not through the senses but
through ‘a purely mental contemplation’
 the essence of Mind is thinking.
The fact that the idea of thinking does not entail the idea of
extension or vice versa shows that the one cannot be a mode of
the other.
Real Distinction Argument
Objections
1.
He has not shown that he has a clear and distinct idea of
the mind apart from the body.
He assumes that unless the concept of body is a part of the
definition of ‘mind’ a complete concept of the mind is
possible apart from that of the body
BUT
there might be necessary external relations between things
that rules out having a complete concept of the one
without the other. Eg. correlative terms like ‘parent’ and
‘child’
Real Distinction Argument
Objections
2.
Excluding Body from my essence is just an intellectual
abstraction
Compare thinking of something as being a right angled
triangle but doubting whether the square of its hypotenuse
was the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
Real Distinction Argument
Objections
3.
The argument is a fallacy.
p1. I can conceive of my mind as unextended.
p2. I can not conceive of my body as unextended.
------------------------------------------------------c. Therefore my body and my mind are distinct.
BUT
p1. I can conceive of the evening star as being different from
Venus.
p2. I can not conceive of Venus as being different from Venus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------c. Therefore the evening star and Venus are distinct.
The Argument from Divisibility
P1. The mind is indivisible.
P2. The body is divisible.
P3. If A is identical with B, then any property that A has B also
has.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------C. Therefore, the mind is distinct from the body.
The Argument from Divisibility
Objections
1.
It makes very good sense to talk about the parts of a mind or
even of divided minds.
2.
Certain cognitive functions depend upon the body, such as
perception, memory.
3.
Descartes equivocates upon the word ‘division’
Mind/Body Dualism
Popular Dualism
The Mind drives the body like a man in a tank.
Mind/Body Dualism
Substance Dualism
The world consists of at least two types of thing, two
substances, one of which is material and is essentially
extended, and the other of which is mental and is essentially
thinking .
Mind/Body Dualism
Observations

Mind does not give life to the body

The soul does not dwell in the body like a pilot in a ship
Descartes says that the soul is ‘substantially united’ to the body, or
‘mixed up in it’.

a subtle fluid – the animal spirit – flows through the nerves
and is the medium of communication between mind and
body.
Mind
Sense organs
Pineal gland
Nerve fibres
Nerve fibres
Pineal gland
Limbs
Mind
Mind/Body Dualism
Objections
1.
The most common objection to substance dualism is that it
is inconceivable that the two substances should be able to
affect each other at all.
Descartes to Princess Elizabeth:
Responses
I beg [Your Highness] to feel free
toa.attribute
this matter and
Occasionalism.
extension to the soul because
that is simply to conceive of it as
united
to the body. Harmony.
b. Pre-established
c. Double-Aspect.
Princess Elizabeth to Descartes:
I admit it would be easier for me to
concede matter and extension to
the soul than the capacity of
moving a body and of being
moved, to an immaterial being.
Mind/Body Dualism
Objections
1.
The most common objection to substance dualism is that it
is inconceivable that the two substances should be able to
affect each other at all.
2.
There are objections to Dualism on the grounds of various
conservation laws.
3.
Ockam’s Razor. There is no increase in explanatory power
provided by this new substance.
4.
Scientific Psychology speaks against dualism.