CrimePsych

For Descartes, dualism was a logical attempt to explain that which could not be explained in purely physical terms, however as time has gone by, the idea that a non-physical, non-spatial mind stuff with no extension could causally interact and affect a purely physical body has lost a lot of its force. It is likely that as time goes on we will see breakthroughs that will force dualists to accept that the mind is actually a purely physical part of the brain.

The two main arguments that Descartes uses to put forward his thoughts are that of clear and distinct ideas, and the indubitability argument. However, in this paper it will be shown that the clear and distinct ideas argument is a very weak attempt at explaining the mind – body dilemma and realistically has no force, and while the indubitability argument is definitely a lot stronger than the one from clear and distinct ideas it still has major flaws that were successfully attacked recently by those such as Gilbert Ryle and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but as early as in Descartes own life time by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.

Dualism states that bodies are spatial, are subject to mechanical laws and they are open to public observation, while the mind is non-spatial, not subject to mechanical laws, and is private. Hence, we have privileged access to the contents of our own mind that cannot be mistaken or corrected.

By the fact that Descartes cannot prove that anything is real other than his own mind, he comes to the radical conclusion through meditation that only his mind exists, for a deceitful demon could be deceiving him or he could be hallucinating and any number of other things. Hence the indubitability argument comes to life based around the premise that you can never come to doubt the existence of your own mind, but can reasonably doubt everything else.

However there do appear to be a number of problems with Descartes reasoning and Wittgenstein, with who I agree, suggests that solipsism is absurd. To suggest that the body, and more importantly everything outside ones mind can be doubted, seems to defy all logic. Nobody could truly suggest that the earth does not exist, the fact that the world exists seems to be a given, in that it is a common sense proposition. “The reasonable man,” says Wittgenstein, “does not have certain doubts; that is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt.” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty) The idea of common sense propositions were first brought to light by Moore against Descartes sceptical method and was later commented on by Wittgenstein but we have no time to discuss these comments here.

It would seem that Descartes starts off on the wrong foot and continues trying to defend a flawed position. One of the more difficult problems to solve for any dualist is that of interaction. Descartes claimed that we have a two-way psychophysical interaction with the physical world and explained the problem of interaction thusly; when we have desires, wants, motivations, a mental state occurs, when such a mental state occurs it creates a certain state in our brain, which in turn moves our bodies, which then causally influence the physical world. The physical world then affects our minds in the same way; we perceive our surroundings using our five senses and send information to our brain which passes to our mind.

One of the more damaging ideas raised on this point was brought out by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia who kept up a correspondence with Descartes up until the day he died. She questions how an immaterial being that has no extension and is not made of physical matter can affect a purely physical body. She quite justly and correctly makes the observation that for the ‘spirits’ of the mind to pass information to the body they would have to be intelligent, yet these intelligent ‘spirits’ are somehow affected by hormones, drugs and alcohol etc. This raises an issue at the core of the argument; how can the mind, that can allegedly subsist without the body and has nothing at all in common with it, be ruled by it?

Descartes cannot ignore the flaw so again reaches into his metaphysical bag of tricks and attempts to respond by introducing another primitive notion. Having already stated that the primitive notion of the body is extension, and that the primitive notion of the mind is thought, Descartes states that the primitive notion of the unity of the soul and body is their union. On top of this it is interesting to note that even if a non-spatial, non-physical mind with no extension could be located the problem of interaction would still remain. Descartes also has an answer for this; he attempts to convince us that where mechanical laws explain the movements in space as the effects of other movements in space, there must be laws that explain the non-spatial workings of minds as the effects of other non-spatial workings of minds. In other words he is saying that just like there are laws of physics in the physical world, there must be special laws of ‘physics’ that are true for the metaphysical world, however he fails to provide any proof or reasoning for believing these things, hence the problem of interaction is left unanswered.

It is not under debate that Descartes was a brilliant philosopher, however his thoughts seem to be somewhat clouded by his religious beliefs and as such, despite all available knowledge, seems unwilling to let go of the idea that our minds are likely purely physical and cannot survive past the death of the body.

A fine example of his inability to accept this idea is the argument from clear and distinct ideas which is an amazingly weaker argument from the beginning. The background to why he believes in the validity of his clear and distinct ideas can be found in his Third Meditation, in which he finds the idea of a supremely perfect being, and concludes that this thought must have been placed there as an imperfect mind could not possibly have conceived it.

Descartes believes that everything he clearly and distinctly understands is capable of being created by God, and that clear and distinct ideas are true because God exists. This is known as the Cartesian circle but stretches from this argument into the indubitability argument as Descartes uses it to ascertain that the mind and body are separate. “Finally, so far as my parents [from whom it appears I have sprung] are concerned, although all that I have ever been able to believe of them were true, that does not make it follow that it is they who conserve me, nor are they even the authors of my being in any sense, in so far as I am a thinking being; since what they did was merely implant certain dispositions in that matter in which the self, i.e. the mind, which alone I at present identify with myself, is by me deemed to exist. And thus there can be no difficulty in their regard, but we must of necessity conclude from the fact alone that I exist, or that the idea of a Being supremely perfect, that is of God, is in me, that the proof of God’s existence is grounded on the highest evidence.” (Rene Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy, He comes to the conclusion that because he can clearly and distinctly understand his mind apart from his body that the two are distinct from one another in that he has a clear and distinct idea of himself as a thinking, non-extended thing and that he has a clear and distinct idea of his body as a non-thinking, extended thing. He accordingly concludes that his mind is therefore completely separate from the body, and can exist without it.

It is impractical to accept this based on the given argument as it is quite obviously based on unsound reasoning. The idea that simply because I can form a conception of myself existing as a thinking thing alone while at the same time doubting that anything physical exists seems to be lacking and easily dismissed. As Wittgenstein states, propositions such as those made by Descartes cannot be used to express metaphysical truths, they are simply a special part of our language game. Ultimately Descartes, although having a scientific background, really begins to let his religious beliefs and his belief of the afterlife interfere quite badly with his philosophical findings and theories. Aristotle states that “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”, in other words, just because we are unable to explain the mind as a purely physical thing, is no reason to jump to conclusions and begin inventing metaphysical theories and beliefs, against all logic. This is also known as Ockham’s razor, or the principle of parsimony, and is the common sense approach to things.

While science has only just begun to scratch the surface of the brain, it is likely in years to come, with advances in technology, that we will see the mystery of the brain unravel before us, and unfortunately, for all of us out there that believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, our hopes of ‘living’ in heaven forever or coming back to earth in a different form will dissipate with dualisms demise.