Examining The Meditations (Part 6): Mind-Body Dualism

Entries in this series:

Examining The Meditations (Part 1): The Religion Of Descartes --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-1-religion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 2): Cartesian Doubt --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-2-cartesian.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 3): Descent Into Skepticism --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-3-descent.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 4): Illusion And Reality --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-4-illusion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 5): "I am, I exist" --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-5-i-am-i.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 6): Mind-Body Dualism


Having proven so far that he exists as a mind, Descartes then inquires as to the nature and identity of the mind he knows he possesses.  He begins to demonstrate some of the differences between the concept of a mind and a body.  In doing so he helps prove some of the points of a position called mind-body dualism.  Mind-body dualism holds that the human mind and body are distinct, separate "substances" and is opposite to monism, which posits that all of reality consists of a single substance: either that nothing but matter exists or no matter exists, only mind and ideas.  The former monism is called materialism (or naturalism or physicalism), the latter monism called idealism.  Each of the two philosophies is nothing more than illogical, fallacious bullshit.  I have spoken about both before, but in the course of this post I will address each again as I analyze Descartes' continuing thoughts in chapter two of his Meditations.

Picking up where I last left off, after proving to himself that he exists and subsequently wondering what he actually is, Descartes next begins the process of distinguishing the mind from the physical body, which he still does not yet believe exists, since thinking only proves to a mind that it exists:


"As to the body, however, I had no doubts about it, but thought I knew its nature distinctly.  If I had tried to describe the mental conception I had of it, I would have expressed it as follows: by a body I understand whatever has a determinable shape and definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell . . ." (17)


In short, a body is a physical form that occupies a particular area of space, which, by inhabiting any particular area, excludes another material body from simultaneously occupying that space.  The senses perceive the body which houses them and other bodies.  Descartes then describes the nature of a mind:


"Thinking?  At last I have discovered it - thought; this alone is inseparable to me.  I am, I exist - that is certain.  But for how long?  For as long as I am thinking.  For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist.  At present I am not admitting anything except what is necessarily true.  I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason - words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now.  But for all that I am a thing which is real and which truly exists.  But what kind of thing?  As I have just said - a thinking thing." (18)

"But what then am I?  A thing that thinks.  What is that?  A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions." (19)

Our bodies house our minds, the seats of our consciousness, but
they are not synonymous with them; definitionally, conceptually, and
logically, they are objectively different.  A body without a mind is
not animated, a mere vessel without a passenger, in a sense.

The nature of a mind is that it thinks, perceives, and experiences.  Descartes notes that were he to totally stop thinking or perceiving at all, at that point it would seem that he does not any longer exist.  Even a dreaming person is actively perceiving and thinking something; being awake is not required to experience consciousness and at least some of its contents.  He also affirms that at the very least he is having actual sensory perceptions even if they do not connect with the external world:


". . . I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feeling heat.  But I am asleep, so all this is false.  Yet I certainly seem to see, hear, and to be warmed.  This cannot be false; what is called 'having a sensory perception' is strictly just this, and in this restricted sense of the term it is simply thinking." (19)


So far he has advanced to proving that his sensory perceptions exist at least as images and concepts in his mind.  "(So far, remember, I am not admitting that there is anything else in me except a mind.)" (22), he writes.  Yes, the very act of having sensory perceptions proves indubitably that at the very least the perceptions appear in my mind, and yet some of my sensory perceptions prove indubitably that I have a body simply by having the perceptions.  I say some because not all of them do.  Ultimately, I have at least 10 senses (well, my sense of smell doesn't exist in any noticeably way) [1].  The act of using my sense of sight and closing my eyes to imagine things in my mind both involve a type of "seeing", so opening my eyes and seeing something does not prove that what I am seeing truly exists outside of my mind.  Yet when it comes to certain senses like the sense of touch, sense of pain (nociception), and sense of temperature (thermoception), I realize upon rational reflection that I cannot experience such sensations and perceptions without having some sort of material body housing my immaterial consciousness.  How do I know, you might ask?  It's actually deceptively simple.

When I feel hotness or coldness, physical pain, or the sensation of either having a body or coming into contact with an external object, I have a physical sensation.  I said earlier in this series that I would eventually again show how I can prove to myself both that I have a body and if I am awake at any given time--now I will present these proofs!  I have to prove that I have a body before I prove that I can tell if I am awake or asleep.

Here is how I know I have a body:


1. A purely immaterial being cannot experience physical sensations.
2. I experience physical sensations.
3. Therefore I am not a purely immaterial being.
4. A being that is not purely immaterial has a physical body of some sort.
5. Therefore I have a physical body of some sort.


The conclusion follows from the premises and every premise in this syllogism is true.  Note that I am only claiming to know that I have a body, not that the appearance of the body I perceive myself to have is the body I actually possess!  I could still be deceived by God or Descartes' hypothetical demon or the Matrix or something else into having an incorrect perception of my body's appearance.  Still, I know with absolute logical certainty that I am not just a conscious mind with no physical being.  As for how I know if I am awake at a particular moment, sleep is (in many cases short of sleepwalking) a suspension of most movements of the body (breathing excepted) where my mind retreats from direct awareness of my senses and a dream is an image or series of images in my mind during sleep.  Although while I am sleeping I can be jarred by outside sounds or movements, my dreams themselves are mental perceptions that do not involve either my senses or any stimuli in the external world.  Thus, if my senses are active, I am indeed awake.  I had previously addressed both the proof of my body and the dream hypothesis in another post [2].

In the end, only an illogical or uneducated person would truly believe that the mind is synonymous with any part of the body or vice versa.  My mind, my seat of consciousness that experiences perceptions and memories and thoughts, is a nonphysical, intangible thing that perceives; my body, the sum of material substance that forms my outward "shell", is comprised of physical matter and is not animated apart from my conscious mind, for matter alone does not perceive.  Mind and body are objectively distinct, and logic and experience demonstrate this in full.  My nonphysical mind grasps my thoughts and logic, which is itself a series of immaterial, inviolable, and universal laws that govern all of reality, including any material world [3], whereas my body's senses apprehend various manifestations of matter.  No one can physically grab a mind or consciousness, but one can physically grab matter.

Interestingly, people often speak as if they are internally aware
 of the mind-body distinction.  A man wearing a hat might say
"This hat covers my head"; a woman wearing a dress might say
"I am wearing a dress over my body".  Anytime someone uses a
word like "I"or "my", especially in reference to their bodies,
they are using language indicating that they are (at least operationally)
 mind-body dualists, speaking as if their bodies belongs to their
minds and not vice versa.

The possible differences between activity in the mind and of body are plentiful.  One could gaze at a certain landscape with the sense of sight possessed by the body and yet hold a very different image in one's mind at the very same time (example: looking at a mountain while mentally envisioning a memory of hanging out with a close friend).  One could be physically confined by straps and yet the straps do not confine the thoughts in one's mind.  One could experience physical sexual arousal of the genitals in one's body without experiencing any mental arousal whatsoever at that time.  One's body could be relatively inactive and calm while the mind is simultaneously racing.  Mind and body are not identical.

Still, Descartes insists at this point in his intellectual journey that none of his sensory perceptions necessitate that he has any body outside of his kind:


"I now know that bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses . . . but by the intellect alone, and this perception derives not from their being touched or seen but from their being understood . . ." (22)


As I proved above, although the act of seeing could be explained away as nothing more than a perception of the mind, an unembodied mind--a purely immaterial being--cannot experience any physical sensations of touch whatsoever.  Therefore, since I experience sensations of touch, pain, and temperature, it follows by logical necessity that I have some sort of physical body even if I do not know its true appearance.  In short, experiences of any kind prove to me that I exist and have a conscious immaterial mind, and experiences of any physical sensations whatsoever prove to me that I have some kind of body.

With substance dualism and the remainder of Descartes' second meditation, my next entry in this series will proceed to his third meditation and explain and assess Descartes' claims about the existence of God!


Summary of observations:
1. My mind and body have objectively distinct natures which I can know by rational reflection and by experience.
2. I do indeed have a body; I am not nothing but an unembodied mind.  In the same way that thinking and perceiving proves to me that my mind exists, physical sensations prove to me that I have a body of some kind, for a totally immaterial being with only a mind could not experience physical sensations.

Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies.  Descartes, Rene.  Ed. Cottingham, John.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.  Print.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/more-than-five-senses.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-refutation-of-naturalism.html