Rene Descartes was a 17th century French philosopher and mathematician who is considered the father of modern philosophy. He was a proponent of dualism, which is the view that reality is composed of two fundamentally different substances - mind and matter. According to Descartes, the defining characteristic of matter is that it occupies physical space, while the defining characteristic of the mind is that it thinks. He argued that because the mind does not have physical properties like occupying space, it must be nonphysical in nature. Therefore, Descartes believed that each person is composed of both a physical body and a nonphysical mind or soul. While dualism attempts to explain the interaction between the mind and body, critics argue that it is unclear how a nonphysical mind

1. Dualism: The metaphysical view that all
things are reducible to two essentially different
realities.
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2. Rene Descartes
A Dualist and father of
modern philosophy
Published Meditations on
First Philosophy in 1641
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3. He argued that there was a total distinction
between mental and material substance
The defining characteristic of matter was to
occupy space
of the mind it was to be conscious or to think
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4. How would you classify the following? Mind or
matter?
desire
stones
will
houses
emotion
gravity
consciousness
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5. Descartes argued that because minds do
not occupy space, that is to say they do
not have physical properties, that minds
are therefore completely nonphysical.
Every person, then, is comprised of two
elements: a physical body and a
nonphysical object, the mind.
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6. Support for Dualism
•!-mental phenomena, your emotions for example, are
very different from physical ones; that they are nonphysical is part of what makes them so distinctive
•!-physical reality follows mathematics, but nonphysical
things or activities, such as thinking, cannot be
quantified by laws of math
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7. Critics
•!-we are all part of the natural order and it is physical so it
seems odd to think that something exists outside this
construct, which dualism says.
•!-how can nonphysical elements interact with physical
ones? We know this happens but how is it possible if they
are separated? What would be the conductor or
relationship?
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8. Houston, we have a problem.
The Mind-Body Problem
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9. So they are different but they do have an impact? For
example, your decision in your mind to watch TV has a
physical consequence—turning on the TV; similarly, your
desire for entertainment.
And things that happen in the physical world can have
mental consequences--- what can you think of?
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10. Sunday, 27 October, 13

11. But although any one attribute is enough to give us knowledge of a
substance, there is always one chief property of a substance that
constitutes its nature and essence, and upon which all the others
depend. Thus extension in length, breadth and depth makes up the
nature of the physical substance; and thought makes up the nature of
thinking substance. For, everything else that may be attributed to
bodies presupposes their extension, and is only a form of this
extended thing; just as everything that we find in mind is only some
form of thinking. Thus, for example, we cannot conceive of a figure
except as an extended thing, nor of movement except as taking place
in an extended space; and in some way imagination, feeling and will
occur only in a thinking thing. But, on the other hand, we are able to
conceive of extension without figure or action, and of thinking without
imagination or sensation, and so on, as is quite clear to anyone who
examines the matter carefully.
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