2008-2-PHI130.Essay.2

Essay 2 ( 1500 words)

You may choose to write your essay on any ONE (1) of the following essay topics. You should draw on the relevant readings from the unit and on the material discussed in lectures (as well as your own thoughts and/or responses to the readings and lecture material) to write your essay.

Topic 1: Cartesian Dualism

Why, according to Descartes, must we understand mind and matter (body) as different substances? Explain and evaluate the reasons he uses to defend this position, and compare it to the physicalist account of the relationship between mind and body (taken from the Nagel or Churchland articles in your Reader). Clearly state which account you think is best and explain why.

Why, according to Descartes, must we understand mind and matter (body) as different substances?

Descartes argues the category error that as "he knows only that he is thinking" he knows that "he is only thought". As he takes his identity to be his mind, and as he does not deny the possibility of the body (though the body might be a deception), he concludes that the mind is a primitive conception (substance) of a different kind to the body (also substance).

Notes:

To answer the first question, look at what Descartes actually says in his meditation. Then look at interpretations in the lecture notes and in Churchland.

Then enumerate the objections he published with his rejoinder. That is to answer the second question.

My position: they're meta-circular. The mind emerges from physicality, but in turn the mind conceives everything, even physicality, as objects of the mind. This quandry is a consequence of the system that both empiricism and rationalism hold in common: that of objectification o experience.