Descartes Substance Dualism Analysis

A French Philosopher from the 17th century, René Descartes, made an argument on substance dualism. His argument is about how humans are made up of spiritual and physical substances. He states that the mind is a spiritual substance, while the brain is a physical substance. In his argument, Descartes clearly expresses that mental things cannot be physical things. He argues that the body and the mind has to be distinct from one another. He believes that if the mind and body are distinct from one another, the soul can outlive the death of the body. However, Descartes’ argument for substance dualism is invalid.

In the selection of Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes argues that the body and mind are two distinct things. He has three steps for

However, that conclusion is not good because on its own, it does not establish substance dualism. In order to do that, individuals need to know that bodies exist and that their nature is different from that of the mind. In Descartes’ third step of his argument, he only argues that the nature of the body is different from the mind. He never presents an argument for the existence of bodies. For example, if someone were to say that I am incorrect and that minds can exist without bodies, then I would like to prove them wrong. First of all, the mind is the element of a person that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, etc. If the mind were to be detached from the body, then the mind could not perceive sensory information like how it normally would in the body. According to Scott Mendelson, M.D., “Sensory experience is a function of the brain and a disembodied mind cannot experience these things” (1). If the mind were to be separated, those individuals would believe that the mind can still perceive sensory information such as sight, smell, hearing, etc. That would be foolish to believe that the mind could do those things without the