Descartes' Dualist Theory

Question:

"Descartes' dualist theory of Mind and Body has difficulty explaining how the two interact. What is the problem? Explain and evaluate Descartes' attempts to overcome it."

Introduction

RenÐ"© Descartes (1596-1650) is known as the "Founder of Modern Philosophy" and the "Cartesian Dualism" although he was also an outstanding mathematician and scientist for his time.

Influenced by notable Western philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, who maintained that man's intelligence could not be identified or be explained in terms of their physical body, he developed the idea that the mind is a nonphysical substance. Descartes was the first philosopher to clearly distinguish the mind from the brain. He believed that the brain was the seat of intelligence, whereas the mind was identified with consciousness and self-awareness. Descartes' most famous philosophical work is the Meditations on First Philosophy (1641).

He formulated the mind/body problem in the form in which it still exists today, in the Sixth Meditation.

The problem

Before presenting the problem we need some background how Descartes defined the mind and the body.

He explains in the Sixth Meditation that the mind is a non-extended thinking thing and that the body is an extended non-thinking thing. The definition he gave us was:

"Now on the one hand 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. And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it." (1986, p.54).

Later on in the Sixth Meditation he makes an observation that the body is by its very nature always very divisible, while the mind is not. He gives us an example that if a foot or any other party of the body is cut off, nothing has been taken away from the mind. He states that the mind is something single and complete because he's unable to distinguish any parts within the mind itself, thus it seems to be indivisible. A body that takes up space, can always be divided, whereas the mind which is non-spatial and simple. (1986, p.59).

The problem that arises from his observations is: If the mind is a non-material entity and the body is a physical substance, how does the two interact? How can something non-material influence a material thing?

This is the famous mind-body problem which has been around since the days of Plato, although Descartes is the philosopher that most people reference when discussing the mind-body problem.

For example, when my hand touches something hot, this sensation is registered in my mind and sends out information to my hand to feel the sensation of pain. When I sense the pain in my hand, my mind tells me to remove my hand from its current position. The problem herein is: if my mind decides to remove the hand, this information must somehow be transferred from my mind to my body to initiate the motor activity to remove it from its position. How can this be done when the mind is separated from the body and how is this explained by Descartes?

In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes offers an explanation to this matter:

"My next observation is that the mind is not immediately affected by all parts of the body, but only by the brain, or perhaps just by one small part of the brain, namely the part which is said to contain the Ð''common' sense. Every time this part of the brain is in a given state, it presents the same signals to the mind, even though the other parts of the body may be in a different condition at the time." (1986, p.59-60).

Although he tries to answer this problem it is still a quite vague attempt. He explains that a little part of the brain [often referred as Ð''pineal gland'] is where the communication between the body and the mind and vice versa takes place, but he doesn't tell us exactly how this interaction is being made.

Instead he involves God into the process when he is talking about sensation and pain. In the Sixth Meditation he states:

"For example, when the nerves in the foot are set in motion in a violent and unusual manner, this motion, by way of the spinal cord, reaches the inner parts of the brain, and there gives the mind its signal for having a certain sensation, namely the sensation of a pain as occurring in the foot. This stimulates the mind to do its best to get rid of the cause of the pain, which it takes to be harmful to the foot. It is