Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog!! I will never get sick of typing that, I'm living out the introvert version of my 2016 Zoella YouTube vlogger dream. Today is my last day of school which I am super happy about and now that school is ending, all of the holiday work is being set and all the university book lists are going to be read. I made the first draft of my personal statement last weekend while at a heavy metal rock music festival which was definitely quite something. Surprisingly, it didn't turn out too badly and I think the next draft or two may be my final personal statement which is so relieving as I can get it out the way. At the start of this year I decided to enter the essay competition within school but it is basically a super long process and you actually write it over the summer and present it in year 13. Me being me, I have not made a single plan nor have I met with my supervisor regarding this. My brilliant plan is to just sit and finish the 4,000 word essay in a single day, send the first draft to my supervisor and hope for the best. That's kind of what inspired me to write today's post as my essay title is 'To what extent do the opinions of Descartes, Plato and Aristotle differ from those of Indian philosophy when it comes to the mind-body problem?' and seeing as I've done no work on it, I may as well write a post on it so I hope you enjoy!!
The Mind-Body Problem
The mind-body problem was originally presented by the French philosopher Rene Descartes and I read about it in his book 'Meditations on the First Philosophy'. He essentially asks if we are a mind with a body or a body with a mind. That sounds confusing so let's break it down a bit. In completely simple terms, it is a debate regarding the relationship of our mind to our body, it could also include parts about how the brain and the mind are similar/different but I'm not going to really go into that during this post. The main question asked is that can our minds survive the death of our physical bodies or are our minds and bodies made of the same material?
Monism vs Dualism
Monism is the idea that our mind and body are the same thing and cannot be differentiated. Sometimes monism can also be called materialism, which is the belief we do not have an immaterial mind/soul and we only have a body and a brain made from physical substances.
Dualism is the idea that our mind and body are completely different and can exist without the other. The mind is made from a metaphysical substance whereas the body and brain are made from biology. Dualism follows Plato's line of thinking with the 'Realm of Forms' and monism follows Aristotle's line of thinking as he was much more scientific.
In Western philosophy, the concept of a 'mind' and 'soul' are interchangeable so if I switch between these terms then that's why.
Cartesian Dualism
Descartes actually presented his own version of dualism which is quite possibly the most extreme type of substance dualism, this is often known as Cartesian dualism.
He gave the argument of a 'malicious demon' who is powerful enough to make one doubt the existence of the world around us and the existence of other minds. In this section of his meditations, he says his most famous phrase 'cognito ergo sum' meaning 'I think therefore I am'. His premises for this argument were something along the lines of:
- I can doubt that my body exists.
- I cannot doubt that I exist as a thinking being as doubt is a form of thinking.
- Since I am a thinking being, I am not identical with my body.
- This establishes the idea that our minds and bodies are separate; the mind can survive the death of our body.
Plato and Aristotle
Plato was also a dualist, he believed in the realm of forms and the idea that our soul reincarnates, similar to Hindu beliefs. You can read more about it on my post about Plato's Cave over
here.
Aristotle was one of Plato's students and he had contrasting views on the soul and it's relationship to the body. He was a monist as mentioned above. You can read more about it on my post about old souls
here.
Although Descartes presented the mind-body problem as an official philosophical question long after the famous Greek philosophers had passed away, Plato and Aristotle were still debating these topics long before Descartes as the concept of a mind/soul and it's relationship to a body is something we have questioned since the start of philosophy.
Will We Ever Have an Answer?
I think the annoying thing about the mind-body problem, alongside many questions in philosophy, is that there are never really any concrete answers. I personally am a dualist, but Indian philosophy is a very different approach to Greek philosophy which I may write another post about. I resonate quite well with Plato out of the philosophers I have discussed in this post. I think that the mind and soul are separate things to start off with so the mind-body problem is something quite different to what Western philosophy says. I know what I'm saying may sound a bit irritating but after a bit more research, I am hoping to be able to upload a post focusing more on Indian philosophy, this is more of an introduction to the topic.
I hope you enjoyed this post, I know sometimes it sounds like I'm going round and round in circles but I completely blame Descartes for that. I love his philosophies but I despise the way he writes, my aunt always tells me that this is why mathematicians should stick to maths and not philosophy because their writing is confusing and doesn't come to a proper conclusion but to some extent, that's all of philosophy hahaha. Anyways, I hope you have a really good day and week ahead, love you <33
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