PHL 252: Descartess Dualism

Tom Bertalan 2 February, 2012

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Dualism
What is dualism?

Dualism is the worldview that incorporates the idea that there can be two kinds of reality, one natural, material, or physical, and the other immaterial, supernatural, or ... metaphysical. [?, p 19]. We can dierentiate between substance dualism and property dualism. In substance dualism, mental things are made of some sort of mental material that is dierent than the physical material of things we can detect with our senses. Property dualism acknowledges that all things are made of the same physical substances, but that the property or action of thought is itself somehow nonphysical. Dualism, like all such metaphysical conceits, arises from fear of mortality. By convincing ourselves that the mind somehow enjoys a separate mode of existence from our physical body [?, p 265], we can justify the religious promise of life of the soul after death of the body.

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Which version of dualism does Descartes propose?

Ren Descartes espouses substance dualism. As a 17th century writer, burdened by an overpowered European e theocracy, a lack of an extant neuroscientic tradition, and a simple personal disinterest in the tangible sciences, Descartes really could not be expected to take any other position. Later, diminished retributive power of the church, and Santiago Ramn y Cajals late 1800s proposition of the neural theory of the brain [?] would make o property dualism more palatable to the general public. In our time, full materialism might become more common, as computers demonstrate to anyone who cares to notice that complex behavior can arise from the rules-based dynamic behavior of a highly nonlinear system, but the persistent popularity of the concept of an immortal soul in Western (and, particularly, American) Christianity will make this transition very slow.

Descartess Conceivability Argument

Descartess Meditations on First Philosophy begin with the doubt of anything revealed via the senses.1 Descartes attempts to satisfy this doubt in nearly all things by nding one thing he is not obliged to doubtthe existence of his own mind. Descartes clumsily tries to justify this one exception to his doubt-everything policy through a logical proof, his Conceivability Argument: First, I know that if I have a vivid and clear thought of something, God could have created it in a way that exactly corresponds to my thought. So the fact that I can vividly and clearly think of one thing apart from another assures me that the two things are distinct from one anotherthat is, that they are
1 Of course, Descartes does not address the diculty of dening where the senses end and the mind begins. This question only arises when we treat the neurons of the brain as the only necessary facility for a mind, and then note that all our sensory physiology (retinal photoreceptors, cochleal mechanotransducers, and other sensory cells) are themselves neurons.

twosince they can be separated by God. Never mind how they could be separated; that does not aect the judgment that they are distinct. So my mind is a distinct thing from my body. Furthermore, my mind is me, for the following reason. I know that I exist and that nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing; from this it follows that my essence consists solely in my being a thinking thing, even though there may be a body that is very closely joined to me. I have a vivid and clear idea of myself as something that thinks and isnt extended, and one of body as something that is extended and does not think. So it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it. [?, p 29] This argument can be restated in a more standard form [?]. Comments and noted problems are noted in emphasized text between the propositions. P1: Its conceivable for me to exist without having a body. This is doubtful because it relies on a wholly subjective personal feeling, true only to Descartes and his sympathizers. P2. Whatever is conceivable is possible. This is also very doubtful. One can easily imagine 2+2 = 5 (counting is hard), but that doesnt make it possible. But even if one accepts this and P7, the two do NOT combine to mean that whatever is conceivable is true. P3. Thus, it is possible for me to exist and not have a body. This appears to be a noncontroversial inference from P1 and P2. P4. If it is possible for me to exist without having a body, then having a body is not essential to me. This proposition depends on Descartes denition of essential. He does not mean that having a body is not something that he nds important in his life; only that having a body is not a precondition for having a mind. See P9, below. P5. Thus, having a body is not essential to me. This proposition doesnt really say anything new after P4. P7. What is inconceivable is impossible. This might be thrown into doubt by Descartess own argument for the fallibility of the mind. In the movie The Princess Bride, the character Vizzinis catchphrase inconceivable! was comical for this very reason: it is a sure mark of hubris to assume that only the things one nds conceivable are actually possible. However, the original fault really lies in P2, since P7 is simply P2s inverse. P8. Thus, it is impossible for me to exist and not have a mind. As stated here, the argument surely implies a previous proposition, in the form It is inconceivable for me to exist and not have a mind, which would have to follow from a previous series of arguments, but that Descartes only weakly says is vivid and clear. P9. If its impossible for me to exist without having a mind, then having a mind is essential to me. This is a denition of essential. P10. Thus, having a mind is essential to me. This is a restatement and condensation of P9.

The argument that consists of P1 through P7 might be valid, but it certainly is not sound, since several of its component propositions are highly subjective and dubitable. Since P8 is not supported by inference, the validity of the argument also breaks down at that point. Even if you accept all Descartess premises as listed above, his dualism goes beyond this argument in assuming that what is merely possible must be accepted as actually true. The steps taken to move from P10 to this conclusion (that the mind is positively separate from the physical universe) are not given, or rather, Descartes only claims that the correctness of this jump is, to him, vivid and clear. While this is not actually a rhetorical fallacy, any argument that claims that a result or proposition is obvious should be viewed with some suspicion. This is another reason (in addition to the unsupported P8) that this argument is mechanically invalid in the larger context of justication for dualism. So, through a trick of belief and intuition, Descartes manages to go from not necessarily X to necessarily not X. While these problems with the argument do not themselves imply the falsity of the conclusion that the mind is separate from the body (one can reach a true conclusion accidentally, despite false premises or inferences), they do make the argument useless for implying the truth of this conclusion. Many, if not all of these objections, are probably contained in the appendicies [?] that were published with Descartess rst version of his Meditations, but Descartess replies to those objections appear to be unsatisfactory.

Evaluation of Descartess Argument

Dualism is a problem because, unlike other philosophical points of view, it has real implications for how we evaluate and treat mental health. Until 1905, when Camillo Golgi [?] and Ramn y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize for their discoveries of a new o staining method for neural tissues a the neural theory of the brain, respectively, brain science was dominated by the reticular theory. Despite the scientic communitys recognition that all other organs and tissues were composed of cells in some way, the reticular theory claimed that the brain was specialan amorphous mass through which mysterious, undened thought-energies owed. While this theory was an example of property dualism, and as such a step forward from the substance dualism of Descartess arguments, it was still medically problematic. Only by abandoning this idea could science begin to propose models of brain function that were supported by experiment, and therefore begin to treat brain pathologies directly. In the past century, the scientic community has largely accepted the neural theory of brain function based on its hugely increased explanatory power. We have built on the neural theory with the further theory of connectionism, which states that the dynamic behavior of a central nervous system network is emergent from the conguration connections and connection strengths in that network. However, the historical inuence of dualism and consequent positions like the reticular theory also prevents psychology and psychiatry from gaining recognition as truly predictive sciences, akin to physics, chemistry, or medicine. [?, p 5] Since psychology is probably the science that sits closes to the humanities, this traditional preference is no accident. The neural explanation for brain activity also has not been readily absorbed by the public, likely because of the dissonance between materialism and the religious notion of the soul. This state of aairs might be acceptable, since only the neurophysicians and pharmacologists who treat mental illness strictly need a materialistic view of the mind to do their work. To the civilian, a dualistic view might actually be comforting, since it does not exclude the possibility of life after death. Ultimately, however, the inability to be at peace with our own mortality has been a driving force for fear and unhappiness throughout human history. As members of an intelligent species, unable to avoid understanding the eventuality of our own deaths, we would do well to at least consider seeking the unintuitive comfort of a material understanding of self. 3