Sexual Morality

Cartesian Dualism

Is the mind physical like the brain or mental secret that no one has the key to?

That is a question philosophers have been arguing about for years and for years to come. How do we know who or what has a mind? Is the mind and brain the same thing? Is behavior just a physical thing or is it caused by some sort of mental state? These questions along with many others will be covered in this intriguing topic. I will evaluate Cartesian Dualism and it's key elements for why Descartes believed in what he did, and will discus the objections to Cartesian Dualism and my reason for argument.

A philosopher named Descartes focused on a solution we use today called Cartesian Dualism also known as the mind/body problem. The mind/body problem states there are two types of things in this world. Physical and non physical. Descartes claims that the brain is a physical ,fleshy piece of matter unlike the mind, which is a mental non physical thing. However, he did believe that the two features had similarities and at times complimented each other. For instance, aspirin can cure head aches or if you hear a certain song on the radio it can make your mood change. An alternating theory to dualism is the mind/body identity theory. First, this theory claims that your mind and brain are the same thing. Second, it claims that any mental beliefs you have ( ex: wants, desires, pain, feelings) are physical properties, not mental. For example, to be in pain is to have something physical occur to you, sending a message to your brain and nervous system that you feel the way you do.

The Leibniz's Law is an argument that defends Dualism by trying to find a property that the mind has that the brain does not and vise versa. The principle it uses is the idea that if mind and brain are one in the same or identical, then they must share the same properties. It is also called the indiscernability of identicals which is a fancy phrase for "not that good of an argument". This means if you don't believe in the conclusion, then you must eliminate one of the first two beliefs.

Descartes's first argument claims that you can not doubt that you have a mind. If you try to doubt that you have a mind you will be contributing to a thought and so you then have to say that you must have a mind. Descartes's next thought is a little vague and I argue that his reasoning is not sufficient. He states that unlike the mind, you can doubt that you have a body. You can say that