Rene Descartes and the Eight Philosophies

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) talks about eight philosophies about the relationship between mind and body. On page 281 Soccio says, “By showing that the mind is different in kind from the body, Descartes hoped to prove that the discoveries of the physicists posed no threat to free will or the existence of an incorporeal soul. The laws of physics apply only to matter, but the mind (soul) is an incorporeal thinking substance. Mind and body are two completely different kinds of substance. Thus, science turns out to be the language of bodies; it cannot address minds or souls, so it is no threat to the church or basic Christian theology.”

Descartes believed in only two substances in the universe. One being material substance, meaning everything is just a different version of the material. The second substance is mental substances, having to do with everything inside the brain. Descartes believed the there was a thing called “innate ideas.” These ideas were built into your head at birth. For example, language structures were built into your head. It was not the actual language, but rather a language structure. He also said that math is the starting point and chemistry is much more definite then psychology because one can use numbers. He then said that the mind is separate from the brain. There is much more ideas dealing with the mind and the brain.

Interactionism says that the body and mind are separate, but the do interact with each other, Hence the term Interactionism. Next is epiphenomenalism is when the soul is around you and you can feel the presence of people. Then materialism says that there is no such thing as mind ora, all you have is your brain. It says that your mind and brain are the same thing. Materialism also says that there is no afterlife. Idealism states that there is no material world, everything is an idea and every material is an assumption. Fifthly, the double aspect theory is defined as composed of one thing and has two aspects. Next comes parallelism which says that mind and body have no interaction at all. This to me does not seem possible to any degree and does not make sense. Occasionalism says that God “zaps” you mind for everything that happens. And finally Pre-established harmony says that mind and body do everything in a simutainulous fashion.

My views on the subject are expressed in Soccio on page 282, “Any philosophical position that divided existence into two completely distinct, independent, unique substance or kinds of thing is a form of dualism. The distinction can be between mind and body, natural and supernatural, sprit and matter, soul and body, good and evil, and so on.”