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Locke: Mind And Body Comparison

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Descartes and Locke: Mind and Body Comparison

John Locke and Rene Descartes were both early philosophers of the seventeenth century. Descartes and Locke tried to find answers in regarding the mind and body. Is in possible for the mind and body to be two different thing? Locke and Decartes provide two different answers to this fundamental question.. In considering the similarities and difference between the philosophies of Locke and Descartes, I think it’s important in considering the differences in their theories with the mind and body.
Rene Descartes believes knowledge depends on absolute certainty. Since perception is unreliable, indubitable knowledge cannot come from the outside world via the senses (Descartes, 76). Descartes believes …show more content…

In second Meditation, Descartes asserts that he is a “thinking thing” (Descartes, 82). He believes a thing that “thinks, doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (Descartes, 83). Not only does Descartes consider the self to be a thinking thing but he believes that is his essence (Descartes, 114). Descartes make an important distinction between the mind and body. He believes that there is a link between the soul and body which sensations are transferred and that this link allows one to identify body as one own. He states, “I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am very closely joined, and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit” (Descartes, 116). This concludes that Descartes thinks one self refers to the soul or the mind alone, not the body. He states,” It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it” (Descates, 115). Mostly because you can imagine my mind without my body Like Descartes, John Locke makes a distinction between the body. Locke believes the soul and the body are separate, but related. Also like Descartes, he think of one self as a thing that thinks. But he disagrees with Descartes that his “essence consists solely in the fact that he is thinking things” (Descates, 114). Locke is famous for is comparing one

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