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Comparing Descartes Meditations: Dualism Of The Mind And Body

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The philosopher Descartes speaks on the entities dear to any person, the mind and body. In the Meditations, speaks about the dualism of the mind and body and their properties. Descartes believes with the will of God something as the body and mind that are joined together have the possibility of existing separately. As stated by Descartes, “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing; and on the other hand, I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing.” He follows this statement up with “And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it. This ideal is also known as a real distinction.
He does admit …show more content…

The mind can tell the body to walk, sit down, etc. In order for there to be some sort of influence present, there must be as well contact. It is impossible to say that the body that has sensory perception is influenced by a non-extended object. For example, if a brain was taken out someone’s body when just waking up would the person have the intellect force to go brush their teeth? Another point is, if the mind is in the body it would be able to also surpass all the pain and struggles the body goes through but just through an intellectual understanding. It might not feel the pain, but it mentally understands the body is going through some. Descartes states, “why should that curious tugging in the stomach which I call hunger tell me that I should eat, or a dryness of the throat tell me to drink… I was not able to give any explanation of all of this, except that nature taught me so.” The nature of the body is that the mind sends sensations and signal to the body for what it needs and wants, so after all it is still the mind in control playing on the body. Perhaps when Descartes speaks on power, he speaks on the advantage of the mind, but the mind is also used by the body. This will be seen in several scenarios. For example, he brings up the scenario of a foot that is hurt. With the nerves being connected he states, “the brain as occurs when the foot is hurt, and so it will necessarily come about that

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