Connection Between The Mind And The Body example essay topic

... ther none of which he can deny or explain. The last and most important part of the 'I' is the mind. It is the thinking thing that proves his existence. An evil genius could trick him neither into believing this body is his when it is not, but his mind cannot be replaced nor absent without a loss of existence. Also, the mind and soul can sense and move, as they do in dreams, while the body remains motionless, almost absent. Now, he has some understanding of what the 'I' is, but how does it relate to, function in, and perceive reality?

What faculties does the 'I' use to recognize and judge things? It can sense things through seeing, smelling, tasting... It can also imagine, which is '... the contemplation of the shape or image of a corporeal thing. ' Descartes uses wax as an example to show how the 'I' recognizes and evaluates things.

A piece of wax has a color, shape, and size that are obvious the senses. It is hard and cold; when you knock on it, it emits a sound. These things he says '... enable a body to be known as distinctly as possible. ' Now, when the wax is brought close to the fire it changes.

It has lost its smell, the shape is disappearing, its size is increasing, and it has become a hot liquid. When you knock on it, it no longer emits a sound. 'For whatever came under the senses of taste, smell, sight touch or hearing has now changed; and yet the wax remains. ' Perhaps, the wax was never how it appeared to the senses but simply a body that was once manifests in these ways and is now manifest in others. As the imagination grasps it, an extended, flexible, and mutable body that is capable of many changes.

Even so, the wax is capable of innumerable changes that it is impossible for one to imagine them all through the imagination. Descartes concludes 'Therefore this insight is not achieved by the faculty of imagination. ' The wax is not perceived through the senses or the imagination but through the mind alone. It is an inspection of the mind.

This inspection is not infallible and its accuracy is dependant upon the attention and speculation given to the subject. Thinking is merely judging, reaching conclusions and assumptions based on connections. Another example would clarify what is meant by 'judging and perceiving through the mind alone. ' Were you to look out the window and watch people crossing the street, you might say that you see the people themselves through the faculty of sight. But what you actually see is clothes, hats, and the like. You perceive these people through an inspection of the mind alone.

What things apply to the perception of wax or people can be applied to all things external. If his perception of things becomes clearer once he knows what faculties and reasons are used then he becomes that much more distinctly known to him. He states, 'For there is not a single consideration that can aid in my perception of the wax or o any other body that fails to make even more manifest the nature of my mind. ' Now, as to the problems Descartes creates with his explanations and arguments. It is not so much falsities he states but the omission of clear explanation and justification. The first problem is with reality and existence.

He proves his existence in that he thinks, that some separate self consciousness must exist somewhere in order for any thought to take place. He has already cast a shadow over the validity of reality and whether this is a true reality he perceives. Descartes never refutes his own arguments of reality; and yet he includes a body and a soul as part of the 'I' in 'I think I am. ' The body and soul are directly linked to reality as he perceives it, the body is his physical extension to reality and the soul is the senses and faculty of motion inside reality. How would these be part of the 'I' if reality is but a deception and the only thing that can be proven is that he exists as a thinking thing? Another problem Descartes faces is a connection between the mind and the body.

Exist means to stand outside. The mind has no extension; it takes up no physical space, does not exist in a place, and is not limited to a place or time. It can travel at will to another place. The mind can travel in time to plan ahead or reflect back.

The mind, in effect, stands outside reality and can readily be proven to exist. The body is defined entirely by extension and location. It does not even necessarily exist and has none of the properties of the mind. How then are these two things connected? Descartes never explains this except to say that they are. Descartes origin of knowledge comes from personal reflection, a meditation.

He evaluates and questions his own existence and cannot continue until he proves and has an understanding of it. Even though he can prove his own existence he can't prove anything outside of it. To Descartes all true knowledge is solely knowledge of the self, its existence, and relation to reality. Ren'e Descartes' approach to the theory of knowledge plays a prominent role in shaping the agenda of early modern philosophy.

It continues to affect (some would say 'infect') the way problems in epistemology are conceived today. Students of philosophy (in his own day, and in the history since) have found the distinctive features of his epistemology to be at once attractive and troubling; features such as the emphasis on method, the role of epistemic foundations, the conception of the doubtful as contrasting with the warranted, the skeptical arguments of the First Meditation, and the cogito ergo sum -- to mention just a few that we shall consider. Depending on context, Descartes thinks that different standards of warrant are appropriate. The context for which he is most famous, and on which the present treatment will focus, is that of investigating First Philosophy.

The first-ness of First Philosophy is (as Descartes conceives it) one of epistemic priority, referring to the matters one must 'first' confront if one is to succeed in acquiring systematic and expansive knowledge..