The Body and Soul

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Key Words

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Descartes: Dualism

Rene Descartes was dualist philosopher credited with the famous quote, "I think, therefore I am." (Cognito ergo sum in Latin.) As a dualist, he argued that the mind and body are two different substances, that can exist independently of one another, and the soul can survive the decay of the body, leading to an afterlife after death.

He reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind (that is, a thinking, non-extended thing) is completely different from that of the body (that is, an extended, non-thinking thing), and therefore it is possible for one to exist without the other. This argument gives rise to the famous problem of mind-body causal interaction still debated today: how can the mind cause some of our bodily limbs to move (for example, raising one's hand to ask a question), and how can the body’s sense organs cause sensations in the mind when their natures are completely different?

Descartes argued there was a 'real distinction' between the body and mind, meaning that they are two different substances. A substance is something that does not require another creature in order to exist, with the exception of divine action. A mode, on the other hand, is a quality or affection of a substance. A mode requires a substance in order to exist, and not just the concurrence of God. Being spherical is a mode of an extended substance. For example, a sphere requires an object extended in three dimensions in order to exist: an unextended sphere cannot be conceived without contradiction. But a substance can be understood to exist alone without requiring any other creature to exist. For example, a stone can exist all by itself. That is, its existence is not dependent upon the existence of minds or other bodies; and, a stone can exist without being any particular size or shape.

Descartes argued that the body and mind were distinctly different because of both a religious and scientific motivation. He aimed to establish a rational foundation for the belief in an afterlife, as described by namely Christianity, by explaining how the soul can exist independently of the body after physical death. Descartes also wanted to champion the late scholastic-Aristotlean approaches of final causation with mechanistic explanations based on the model of geometry. Descartes himself understood one of the doctrines central to all these approaches; the doctrine that everything ultimately behaved for the sake of some end or goal. Descartes believed scholastic natural philosophers used final causes as principles for physical explanations.

Aristotlean philosophy states that everything has a final cause, that is the ultimate end or goal for the sake of which the rest of the organism was organised. For instance, a swallow is good at building nests because that is what swallows are meant to do. Likewise, a house is designed to be lived in, as this is its final cause. Houses, swallows, and the rest of the physical world have their properties/dispositions because of their final causes.

However, Descartes criticises this approach by using the example of a stone falling to the ground. He says that the stone cannot fall to the ground with the intention of achieving a final cause of going to the centre of the earth, as it lacks all mental capability to understand this goal or indeed to make a goal. He maintained that a stone having the ability to reason was absurd, claiming that physical bodies are able to move without mental capacity. If a stone is a physical object, that clearly lacks the ability to reason and think, then what more of us? Our bodies are merely physical objects, so what makes us able to reason cannot be our bodies, as other physical objects aren't able to do this. Thus, the mind, which is able to reason, must be a separate capacity.

The First Version of the Real Distinction Argument

The first version is found in this excerpt from the Sixth Meditation:

On the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing [that is, a mind], and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. (AT VII 78: CSM II 54).

The argument can be summarised as follows:

I have a clear and distinct idea of the mind as a thinking, non-extended thing.

I have a clear and distinct idea of body as an extended, non-thinking thing.

Therefore, the mind is really distinct from the body and can exist without it.

Descartes explains what he means by a “clear and distinct idea” in his work Principles of Philosophy at part I, section 45. He likens a clear visual perception to a clear intellectual perception; just as someone might have a sharply focused visual perception of something, an idea is clear when it is in sharp intellectual focus. Moreover, an idea is distinct when, in addition to being clear, all other ideas not belonging to it are completely excluded from it. Hence, Descartes is claiming in both premises that his idea of the mind and his idea of the body exclude all other ideas that do not belong to them, including each other, and all that remains is what can be clearly understood of each. As a result, he clearly and distinctly understands the mind all by itself, separately from the body, and the body all by itself, separately from the mind.

His ability to clearly and distinctly understand them separately from one another implies that each can exist alone without the other. This is because “existence is contained in the idea or concept of every single thing, since we cannot conceive of anything except as existing. Possible or contingent existence is contained in the concept of a limited thing...” (AT VII 166: CSM II 117). Descartes, then, clearly and distinctly perceives the mind as possibly existing all by itself, and the body as possibly existing all by itself.

Additional Support: God Gave Me The Idea

There is evidence of bodies existing without minds, as stones can exist as non-thinking physical bodies, however, there is little to no evidence of minds existing independently of the body. This could mean that we require a brain in order to think, and that the mind is merely an extension of the substance of the body. Hence, thinking is technically a mode of the body.

However, in the Fourth Meditation, Descartes goes to great lengths to guarantee the truth of whatever is clearly and distinctly understood. He establishes that God exists and that he cannot deceive us. Descartes claims that he cannot help but believe clear and distinct ideas to be true. However, if God put a clear and distinct idea in him that was false, then he could not help but believe a falsehood to be true and, to make matters worse, he would never be able to discover the mistake. Descartes claimed that this cannot be the case, because this would require God to deceive him, which he believes is impossible. Essentially, Descartes claimed that his distinction between the body and mind had to be correct, as it was given to him by God.

However, if it turns out that God does not exist or that he can be a deceiver, then all bets are off. Additionally, there is no way to prove that God gave Descartes the idea in the first place. In the end, the conclusion is established with absolute certainty only when considered from within Descartes’ own epistemological framework but loses its force if that framework turns out to be false or when evaluated from outside of it.

The Second Version of the Real Distinction Argument

The argument just examined is formulated in a different way later in the Sixth Meditation:

There is a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any parts within myself; I understand myself to be something quite single and complete….By contrast, there is no corporeal or extended thing that I can think of which in my thought I cannot easily divide into parts; and this very fact makes me understand that it is divisible. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body…. (AT VII 86-87: CSM II 59).

This argument can be reformulated as:

I understand the mind to be indivisible by its very nature.

I understand body to be divisible by its very nature.

Therefore, the mind is completely different from the body.

The word 'nature' can be understood to mean the essence of something. Extension constitutes the nature or essence of bodily kinds of things; while thinking constitutes the nature or essence of mental kinds of things. Here Descartes is arguing that a property of what it is to be a body, or extended thing, is to be divisible, while a property of what it is to be a mind or thinking thing is to be indivisible.

First, it is easy to see that bodies are divisible. Just take any body, say a pencil or a piece of paper, and break it or cut it in half. Now you have two bodies instead of one. However, the 'I' or the mind cannot be divided, as having two selves would be considered absurd. Since a substance cannot be considered both divisible and indivisible simultaneously, this means that the mind and the body must be separate entities, instead of extensions of the same substance. For instance, on the one hand, Descartes argues that the mind is indivisible because he cannot perceive himself as having any parts. On the other hand, the body is divisible because he cannot think of a body except as having parts. Hence, if mind and body had the same nature, it would be a nature both with and without parts. Yet such a thing is unintelligible.

Criticism: The Mind-Body Problem and The Body-Mind Problem

These problems are simply the questions of how the mind and body can interact to form a functioning whole, instead of remaining completely separate. Pierre Gassendi, the author of the Fifth Objections, and Descartes’ correspondent, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, made a convincing case with the mind-body problem, asking Descartes how the mind can

The complete diversity of the respective natures of the body and mind have serious consequences for the kinds of modes each can possess. For instance, in the Second Meditation, Descartes argues that he is nothing but a thinking thing or mind, that is, Descartes argues that he is a “thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (AT VII 28: CSM II 19). It makes no sense to ascribe such modes to entirely extended, non-thinking things like stones, and therefore, only minds can have these kinds of modes. Conversely, it makes no sense to ascribe modes of size, shape, quantity and motion to non-extended, thinking things. For example, the concept of an unextended shape is unintelligible. Therefore, a mind cannot be understood to be shaped or in motion, nor can a body understand or sense anything. Human beings, however, are supposed to be combinations of mind and body such that the mind’s choices can cause modes of motion in the body, and motions in certain bodily organs, such as the eye, cause modes of sensation in the mind.

It would seem that the mind has the ability to cause motion in the body, according to its will. For instance, a student will raise their hand in class to answer a question (the motion), because of the feeling that they should or that they want to (the reasons from the thoughts of the mind).

This problem of 'mind-to-body' causation so troubled Gassendi and Elizabeth because they saw that in order for the mind to influence the body, then the two would have to come into contact with one another. For instance, the balls move on a snooker table when the snooker player strikes a ball with the cue. This influence occurs because there is contact between the two surfaces. However, the contact between the mind and body cannot be between two physical surfaces, because of the mind’s non-extended nature. Therefore, there is no intelligible explanation of voluntary bodily movement.

Additionally, another problem arises if contact cannot be established between the mind and body. How can the body sense things if sensory perception is mode of the mind? This is known as the problem is 'body-to-mind- causation. For instance, a visual sensation of a tree is a mode of the mind alone. The cause of this mode would be explained by the motion of various imperceptible bodies causing parts of the eye to move, then movements in the optic nerve, which in turn cause various “animal spirits” to move in the brain and finally result in the sensory idea of the tree in the mind. Because of the lack of conceivable contact between the mind and body, there is a lack of intelligible explanation for sensory perception also.

Since the mind must have a surface and a capacity for motion, the mind must also be extended and, therefore, mind and body are not completely different. This means the “clear and distinct” ideas of mind and body, as mutually exclusive natures, must be false in order for mind-body causal interaction to occur.

Descartes' Rebuttal

Descartes dismisses the criticism that two substances with completely different natures cannot act on each other. He outlines his principles of causation in the Third Meditation. The relevant portion of this discussion is when Descartes argues that the less real cannot cause something that is more real, because the less real does not have enough reality to bring about something more real than itself. This principle applies on the general level of substances and modes. On this account, an infinite substance, that is, God, is the most real thing because only he requires nothing else in order to exist; created, finite substances are next most real, because they require only God’s creative and conservative activity in order to exist; and finally, modes are the least real, because they require a created substance and an infinite substance in order to exist. So, on this principle, a mode cannot cause the existence of a substance since modes are less real than finite substances. Similarly, a created, finite substance cannot cause the existence of an infinite substance. But a finite substance can cause the existence of another finite substance or a mode (since modes are less real than substances). Hence, Descartes’ point could be that the completely diverse natures of mind and body do not violate this causal principle, since both are finite substances causing modes to exist in some other finite substance. This indicates further that the “activity” of the mind on the body does not require contact and motion, thereby suggesting that mind and body do not bear a mechanistic causal relation to each other.

Source: http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/

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Behaviourism

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Personal Identity

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Functionalism

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Links with the Problem of Evil

The question of whether life after death is feasible has a strong link with the problem of evil. For instance:

It appears that there is little justice on earth for wrongdoing, so it follows that justice must be served after death.

This also has a link with Kant's theory of ethics, as our motivation to be moral comes from the promise of the Summum Bonum which is given to us after physical death.

Augustine's Theodicy

Augustine argued that death is a consequence of sin, so this means that if humans had never sinned, there would be no death.

People can be redeemed by Jesus' death, but everyone who fails to do so will go to Hell.

However, some modern thinkers regard Hell as immoral (looking at you, John Hick!), as infinite punishment for finite sin seems to contradict the idea of a loving God. Hick instead proposes that an omnibenevolent God is incapable of sending people to Hell, and eventually, everyone makes it to Heaven.

Augustine's ideas of predestination seems to contradict our free choice to go to Heaven and Hell.

The Irenaean Theodicy

Irenaeus claimed that God created Adam and Eve as morally immature, and introduced evil and suffering in order to help humans to morally grow and develop.

Hick supports and develops this 'soul-making' theodicy, arguing a doctrine of universal salvation, where spiritual and moral growth continues after physical death, before the soul proceeds to a blissful afterlife.

Richard Swinburne argues that death is essential. Our choices only matter if made within a limited timescale. If there is always another chance, our choices do not matter.

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Identity Theories

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Life After Death is Incoherent