The Mind-Body Problem: Rene Descartes' Influence on Identity - Essay Sample

Introduction

There have been philosophers whose contribution lent credence to the idea that how people interact with their environment determines their personal identity. One such philosopher is Rene Descartes (1596, -1650 CE). He was a French philosopher who was one of the earliest philosophers to formulate (1) mind-body dualism, and (2) the mind-body problem. He is also considered the father of modern philosophy for pioneering the use of observations and experiment in the field. What comes across from his works is the idea that a person can never get a firm grip on reality without questioning it. He concluded that when a person can critically think about the world around them, it is then that thy can say that they exist in that reality. Descartes expressed this basic idea in his Cognito, ergo sum dictum ("I think, therefore I am"). He buttressed this Cognito doctrine on metaphysical dualism that only accommodates a distinction between a person's processes of thinking with the material world. Hence his metaphysics is rationalist in nature. The steps that led to his Cogito Ergo Sum preposition were that (1) he determined that certainty of existence is subjective; and (2) thus, the capacity to reason is evidence of existence. Descartes is not giving an empirical philosophical explanation of reality.

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The film "The Matrix" illustrates the Cogito Ergo Sum dictum beautifully. The movie is set in dystopian future where sentient machines have enslaved the human race. Humans are cloned then harvested for electric power. To keep them in line, they are plugged into a dream world. For humans to be subdued in the dream world (or matrix) , their senses are suppressed and their ability to rationalize their existence has been taken away. Descartes emphasizes the importance of human reason to the process of understanding reality by saying in Meditation I that illusions can be so powerful that a person may be convinced that they represent reality. He explains this point by saying"[a]s if I were not a man who sleeps at night and often has all the same experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake-indeed sometimes even more improbable ones. Often in my dreams I am convinced of just such familiar events-that I am sitting by the fire in my dressing-gown-when in fact I am lying undressed in bed!"

The movie's main protagonist is Neo (Keanu Reeves) who unlike most other people, he questioned his reality and by trying to rationalize the world around him, he woke up from the dream to join a band of rebels who had also gone through the same experience of revelation. Consequently, Descartes' Cognito principle has the basic assumption that the inability to reason is a barrier towards understanding the distinction between illusions and reality. Hence, a person must first doubt their perceived reality before they come to fully understand it. Descartes explains this point by stating that even if a person were to pretend everything in the environment around them doesn't exist, they are still using human reason. In the matrix, the enslaved humans who did not doubt or question the dream world never got in trouble but Neo and other like him eventually escaped the dream world after first questioning the reality they found themselves in.

Since the philosopher Ibn Sina (980-1037 CE, Latinized as Avicenna) and Descartes both advocated for a strict metaphysical soul-body difference (substance dualism), a comparison is necessary to fully evaluate Descartes' ideas. While Descartes used Cognito principle to advance a substantive dualism argument, Avicenna used the "Flying Man" to do the same. Avicenna, as a Medieval Islamic philosopher, was heavily influenced by Aristotle. Hence in "Flying Man," Avicenna reiterates the Aristotelian idea that people have a soul which has the exclusively job of being a source of intellect and rationality. However, he attaches notions of divine knowledge to Aristotle's secular model on how people engage in rational thinking.

Avicenna, explains that since all people are endowed by a soul that knows what is or is not morally permissible according to divine command, the soul of a person is distinct from and can exist even after death. Just like Descartes, he employs a thought experiment. He argues that even if a person was to be suspended mid-air and their ability to collect sense data taken away from them, they will be capable of becoming self-aware. To him, this is because the human soul is independent of the body and thus, it can exist without the latter's activity. His logical premise is that if a soul can acquire an infinite amount of divine knowledge, it must also be infinite unlike the human body that will eventually breakdown.

There are sufficient grounds to propose that there are similarities between the Cognito and flying man propositions. Firstly, they both use thought experiments as their philosophical methodologies. Secondly, in both mental experiments, a person is denied the capacity to collect and interpret sense data. Finally, both involve an explicit or hidden advocacy for people to doubt the accuracy of their realities. Descartes explicitly speaks about doubt in Meditation I. Avicenna introduces the idea of doubt playing a role in our understanding of reality by saying that the divine nature of a soul means that a man will not doubt their existence .

The differences are in the ontological content in a soul being proposed the two philosophers. The import from Descartes' emphasis on the union of the human mind with the corporeal body is that there is only one soul per person. Avicenna's sees the soul as having more than one component. The animal soul seeks bodily sustenance while the rational soul is in charge of the thinking process. The rational soul is sub-divided into two to acquire divine law and regulate a person's conduct. Thus Avicenna and Descartes may agree that the soul is distinct from the physical body, they do not have the same formulation of what a soul is or what its ideal job should be.

Avicenna believes that a meaningful life involves a person giving up worldly desires so that they can have a soul that gets divine knowledge. Hence, he proposes the intellect of a person is raised when they can be disciplined enough to suppress their base. Descartes believes that human soul has comes built with divine knowledge. His schema of hyperbolic doubt filters away knowledge that is incompatible with divine command. He disagrees with Avicenna by not proposing that a soul can be liberated from a corporeal body.

Conclusions

There are sufficient grounds to propose that there are similarities between the Cognito and flying man propositions. They both rely on thought experiments. Secondly, in both mental experiments, a person is denied the capacity to collect and interpret sense data. Finally, both involve an explicit or hidden advocacy for people to doubt the accuracy of their realities. Descartes explicitly speaks about doubt in Meditation I. Avicenna introduces the idea of doubt playing a role in our understanding of reality by saying that the divine nature of a soul means that a man will not doubt their existence .

Avicenna's flying man argument to make Aristotle's dualism acquire a theological dimension. He contends that everyone has a soul that is imbued with divine knowledge to distinguish right from wrong. Consequently, even when a person's body fails them, they are in essence still alive in the spirit world because the soul is separate from the body. On the other hand, Descartes repudiates the Aristotelian dualism model by saying that the soul of a person cannot be separated from their body.

Their differences on dualism is ontological in nature. Avicenna's conception of the human soul has complex and interdependent partitions, with only the intellectual soul capable of existing independent of a person's body. Descartes' conception of the soul is unitary and inseparable from the body. These ontological over the nature of the soul means that Descartes' and Avicenna views on substantive dualism are irreconcilable.