Descartes on the mind

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Descartes on the mind

• Michael Lacewing
• enquiries_at_alevelphilosophy.co.uk

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The cogito

• I think cannot be doubted.
• What am I? I am a thing that thinks. I cannot
  doubt this, yet I can doubt whether I have a
  body. So I can be separated from a body.
• The mind is a separate substance from the body.

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Objection 1 thinking thing

• I think - is there an I? What does this mean?
• If I exist - as a substance - from one thought to
  the next, Descartes has not shown this only that
  there are thoughts.
• If I exist as that which thinks this thought,
  Descartes has not shown I exist for more than one
  thought.

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Objection 2 minds without bodies

• Just because Descartes can think of his mind
  existing without his body, this doesnt mean that
  his mind really can exist without his body.
  Perhaps there is some metaphysical connection
  between his mind and body that would make this
  impossible that Descartes doesnt know about.
• Cp. I think the Masked Man robbed the bank I
  dont think my father robbed the bank Therefore,
  my father isnt the Masked Man.

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On bodies

• So far, Descartes is an idealist, not a dualist.
  He does not assert that the body exists until
  Meditation VI.
• The body - if it exists - has parts, the mind has
  no parts. These are essential properties of mind
  and body. So they are different kinds of thing.
• Is this right?

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Mental causation

• If the mind is just thought, not in space, and
  matter is just extension, in space, how could one
  possibly causally affect the other?
• All physical effects have a sufficient physical
  cause. Nothing happens needs a non-physical
  explanation.
• Mental causes would violate the laws of physics,
  e.g. law of conservation of energy.

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Mind and personal identity

• Am I this mind (substance) or this set of
  psychological properties?
• Locke Even if there are minds as separate
  things, I am not a mind
• If all the psychological properties, my memories,
  beliefs, desires, emotions, were swapped with
  yours - would I be my original soul or your
  original soul?
• Locke identity depends on connections, esp.
  memories

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What am I?

• Narrow I am essentially a soul, a thing that
  thinks that can be separated from a body.
  (Meditation II)
• I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a
  vessel, butI am very closely united with it, and
  so to speak so intermingled with it that I seem
  to compose with it one whole. (Meditation VI)
• I am a person - an embodied soul.
• the soul takes on bodily experiences as its own,
  i.e. we refer our sensations, emotions, etc. to
  our selves

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Confused?

• It does not seem to me that the human mind is
  capable of forming a very distinct conception
  both of the distinction between the soul and the
  body and of their union for to do this it is
  necessary to conceive of them as a single thing
  and, at the same time, to conceive of them as two
  things and the two conceptions are mutually
  opposed.

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Other topics

• That the mind is known better than body
  (Meditation II)
• That mind is essentially thought (on
  intentionality)
• The relationship between thought and
  consciousness
• Introspection, immediate access, privacy
• Problem of other minds