Spinoza's Interpretation Of The Mind-Body Problem

Nevertheless, the non-material form allows individuals to think about anything. In conclusion, both Aristotle and Plato’s are theories of dualism, they just differ in their explanations. Plato seems to maintain that mind and body are the same; however, Aristotle maintains that they are different.

Descartes declares he has to determine if there is a God and if he does exist, whether he can be a deceiver. The reason he has to determine the existence of God and what he is, rests in his theories of ideas. This is because we do not know if there is an outside world and we can almost imagine everything, so all depends on God’s existence and if he is a deceiver. “To prove that this non-deceiving God exists, Descartes finds in his mind a few principles he regards as necessary truths which are evident by the “natural light” which is the power or cognitive faculty for clear and distinct perception.” If arguments is presented in logical trains of thought, people could not help but to be swayed and to understand those arguments.

It is contradictory. It does not actually say that God exists, but that we can call the unknown cause of everything god. The word god can be the name for some energy that caused the Big Bang. The final argument is the ontological argument.

Dualism is the idea that the mind and the body are two separate entities that are capable of interaction. Dualist argues that the mind is separate from the brain rather than the brain and the body existing as one. The brain is a physical aspect while the mind is a non-physical aspect. When the two are connected neurons send signals to our bodies from our brains to carry out actions, and vice versa. This story makes an incredible showing with regards to exhibiting how the body and the brain are discrete yet at the same time collaborates.

4. Ontological Argument (Anselm of Canterbury proposed this argument and later Rene Descartes deployed a similar argument) Idea of God - Everyone has an idea of God. Even atheists believe in a god in some sense. If you can conceive a God, then logic says there must be a God, or else where did the idea come from?

He points out that the Bible cannot be taken literally because sometimes it can be interpreted in different ways. The Bible was written for the common people and illiterate to understand, and to prove his point he mentions that the Bible gives God a body like ours while theologies believe God has no such features. He moves to his main point about who has the authority to determine what is true and untrue. He argues that what is scientifically proven will to understand the Bible true meaning.

For example, a rock can exist all by itself. This indicates that Descartes proposed that God if he wanted could create a world of beings that could exist all by itself. Therefore what he means to say is that if the mind and body are really distinct, they could exist all by themselves without being dependant on each other. 

Although he has changed a bit in his stance from his books like Discourse and Meditations which has versions like the First, the Second, the Sixth and so on, he was still critiqued by two of his successors, Nicolas Malebranche and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Malebranche developed an internal critique of Descartes theory of the mind.

Descartes’ explores this concept in his work, Mediations on First Philosophy, in which he develops the famous theory that started the conversation of the mind and body; Cartesian Dualism (also known as mind-body dualism). In summary, Cartesian Dualism argues that the physical body and immaterial soul are two distinct things that happen to interact with one another. The reason that Cartesian Dualism is important is that it has set a foundation for which philosophers can work from in regards to expanding on the mind-body problem. Thus, there are numerous approaches that have branched off of Descartes’ theory. Two such approaches are Behaviorism and Functionalism.

And how do we know it?” otherwise known as epistemology. The process in which he uses can be described as the “transcendental inquiry.” In short, this involves transcending the mind in order to understand the mind. When it comes to the mind, Kant describes two types of knowledge.

Furthermore, the mind is believed to have been given to us by God in order to reach the truth; even Abdu’l-Baha, the successor of the Baha’i faith, states that “God has given us rational minds for this purpose, to penetrate all things, to find truth. If one renounce reason, what remains? The sacred texts? How can we understand God’s commands and to what use can we put them without the balance of reason?” Explaining that it would not be possible for them to gain access to everything without the usage of reason and that we would not be able to properly use God’s teachings without reason.

Since God lives outside of time, it could be instantaneous. How exactly the universe was physically created is not important to us, but that God created it is what is important. How God made life could have been through evolution or something entirely different. Every idea of how we were created can easily fit into the Bible 's aspect of creation because it is very vague and does not go into direct detail on how exactly God created everything. It is not important how we were physically created but that God created

Plato expresses his personal convictions and beliefs through the dialogues of his teacher, Socrates. Through the dialogue Phaedo, Plato presents four different arguments that he felt supported his idea of the soul being immortal, and that we will live on after the body no longer exists in the physical world. The four arguments that Plato lays out in the Phaedo are the argument of Opposites, Recollection, Affinity, and the final argument of The Forms. These arguments have been analyzed throughout the ages, receiving not only praise, but at times, criticism for seeming insufficient and weak. The strongest arguments for the immortality of the soul presented by Plato are the arguments of Affinity and The Forms.