Mind And Body example essay topic
The first of these works, De ho mine [1] was completed in Holland about 1633, on the eve of the condemnation of Galileo. When Descartes' friend and frequent correspondent, Marin Mersenne, wrote to him of Galileo's fate at the hands of the Inquisition, Descartes immediately suppressed his own treatise. As a result, the world's first extended essay on physiological psychology was published only well after its author's death. In this work, Descartes proposed a mechanism [see figure 2] for automatic reaction in response to external events.
According to his proposal, external motions affect the peripheral ends of the nerve fibrils, which in turn displace the central ends. As the central ends are displaced, the pattern of space is rearranged and the flow of animal spirits is thereby directed into the appropriate nerves. It was Descartes' articulation of this mechanism for automatic, differentiated reaction that led to his generally being credited with the founding of reflex theory. Although extended discussion of the metaphysical split between mind and body did not appear until Descartes' Meditations, his Dehomine outlined these views and provided the first articulation of the mind / body interaction ism that was to elicit such pronounced reaction from later thinkers. In Descartes' conception, the rational soul, an entity distinct from the body and making contact with the body at the pineal gland, might or might not become aware of the differential outflow of animal spirits brought about through the rearrangement of the spaces. When such awareness did occur, however, the result was conscious sensation -- body affecting mind.
In turn, in voluntary action, the soul might itself initiate a differential outflow of animal spirits. Mind, in other words, could also affect body.