BITS Pilani

Pilani Campus

Descartes: The
Problem of Dualism
Dr. Anupam Yadav

Substance, Attributes and

Modes
God is the substance in the absolute sense. Mind and body are
two other independent substances but are dependent on God.
We know them through their attributes. The attribute of the self
is thinking and the attribute of the body or matter is extension.
Attribute inheres in the substance, i.e without which it cannot be
conceived.
We know the attributes through their modes or modifications.
We cannot conceive figure without extension, nor motion except
in the extended space. Similarly, we cannot conceive of
imagination and will without the thinking thing. But we can
conceive of extension without figure or motion, and thought
without imagination and will.

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The Dualism of Substances

Mind and body are distinct; for, their attributes are distinct. Body
is extended but passive, mind is active and free. Mind is
absolutely without extension and no body can think.
We have a clear and distinct idea of ourselves as thinking and
unextended beings. We may exist without the body. We may
also conceive of ourselves without the faculties of imagination
and perception.
However, Descartes broader idea of the thinking substance can
be understood as consciousness as one that doubts,
understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses,
imagines as well as feels.

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Mind-Body Dualism
With the two substances nature is left free for the
mechanical explanations of science, without any
purpose or the final cause. Mind is eliminated from
nature.
This dualism Descartes applies to the entire organic
world and to the human body. The human body, like
the animal body is a machine. The moving principle in
the body is the heat in the heart; the organs of motion
are the muscles; the organs of sensations, the nerves.
The arrangements of movements are coordinated like
the mechanical movements in a watch.

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Mind-Body Interaction?
If two substances exclude each other, there can
be no interaction between them. Mind cannot
cause change in the body and the body cannot
cause change in the mind.
There are however certain facts which point the
union between mind and body. Appetites of
hunger and thirst; emotions and passions of the
mind; sensations of pain, color, light ,sound etc.
They require explanation in terms of the union of
the two. If I were just a thinking being, without
the body, I would probably know that I am
hungry but not feel that I am hungry.
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Descartes Position
Thought and extension, he says, are combined in man
but the unity is that of composition not that of nature.
Sensations, feelings and appetites are disturbances in
the soul resulting from its union with the body. In spite of
the union, body and soul remain distinct.
God has put them together but they are separate in their
nature.
His position is that mind and body are not such that a
physical state becomes or produces or causes a mental
state and vice-versa but that mind is simply troubled by
the organic process.

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Descartes Solution
Movements in the animal spirits are caused by sensible
objects and transferred to the pineal gland; in this way
sensations are produced.
The soul can also move the gland in different ways; this
motion is transferred to the animal spirits and conducted
by them over the nerves into the muscles.
The relation between the mind and body is conceived as
causal through the mediation of the pineal gland.
But Descartes does not succeed in showing how this
interaction is compatible with his metaphysical dualism of
thinking and extended substance.

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Spinozas Parallelism
Like Descartes, Spinoza believed in the power of
human reason to secure sure and universal knowledge
and that it is the mathematical proceeding from axioms
can only give logical certainty in our thinking.
For him, the idea of dependent substance is
inconsistent. God is the only substance and thought and
extension cannot be separate substances; God is the
bearer of all qualities. Dualism of substance disappears
but dualism of attributes remains. There can be no
interaction between the two. They are parallel.
Wherever there are mental processes there are
physical processes and vice-versa.
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THANK YOU
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Pilani Campus