Descartes and The Cartesian "Split" - Foundation of Modern Thought

Descartes:
I think therefore I am
Descartes found that we may doubt, or pretend to doubt, everything except ourselves doubting.
Descartes and the Cartesian "Split" -- Foundation of Modern Thought

* dualism, Cartesian interactionist - The view that: (1) the mental and the material comprise
two different classes of substance and; (2) both can have causal effects on the other.
* substance dualism - The view that the mental and the physical comprise two different classes
of objects: minds and bodies. Perhaps the most famous proponent of substance dualism was
Descartes, who cashed out the distinction between minds and bodies as follows: minds are things
that think but lack spatial magnitude, and bodies are things that have spatial magnitudes, but don't
think. Different substance dualists may disagree as to how best to define what's essential to being
mental and physical, but they do agree that the difference in question is one of objects, not
properties. So, for example, my belief that the Eiffel tower is in France and my being six feet tall
are properties of different objects, i.e., my mind and my body, respectively.
* Cartesian Dualism is the clearest and most well-worked out form of dualism, which can be
summarized in five tenets. According to his view,
Each person is composed of two things, a body and a mind.
Bodies and minds can and sometimes do exist independently of one another (e.g., after death).
Minds are necessarily such that they can think but take up no space.
IV. Bodies are necessarily such that they cannot think and do take up some space.
* Cartesian Dualism Outlined There are two realities:
(1) Body/Matter - (spatially extended) [the res extensa]
(2) Mind - (thinking) [the res cogitans] Thus, human beings are ‘embodied minds’.
Minds do not interact with the entire body directly, but through the brain (specifically: the pineal
gland). [See diagram, below]
Descartes' Argument, oversimplified:

(1) I can’t doubt that I am a thinking thing
(2) I can doubt that I have a body, and so can doubt that I am a material thing.
THEREFORE
(3) I am essentially a thinking thing, and having a body or being a material thing is not essential
to my being what I am.
Why Descartes? What is the argument that is so influential?

Descartes was a mathematician. He wished to make philosophy a kind of mathematical science;
at least, he wished to express it with mathematical clarity. For Descartes, the goal was to invent a
new philosophy, one that gives both a clear and distinct account of reality. As geometry begins
with self- evident truths called axioms, philosophy must begin with some basic truth which is so
evident, so inevitable, that it cannot be doubted even by a fictitious doubt of the mind. Descartes
found that we may doubt, or pretend to doubt, everything except ourselves doubting.
In other words, I can doubt everything by an effort of mind; but I cannot doubt that I am making
an effort of mind.
That I exist as a thinking individual is the primal and indubitable truth. Descartes formulated it
thus: "Cogito ergo sum" (Je pense donc je suis; I think therefore I am). But the ergo (or the
donc or the therefore) has not the implication of a reasoned conclusion. No, the two facts of
existence and thought are simultaneously and inevitably recognized. Upon the fact of the
thinking existence, as upon the one fundamental certitude, all philosophy must be built up.
Upon this foundation Descartes proceeds to build accordingly. I think. My thoughts are reduced
to elements; ideas and judgments and feelings. Ideas and feelings are what they are; they are true
in themselves. But when I make judgment upon thoughts and feelings I may go wrong. I am only
safe in judging upon such ideas as I recognize to be wholly objective, not my own making or
devising.
Now I can believe in God since I find that I have an idea of absolute perfection, of absolute
actuality. I could not have made up this idea, for its perfection is beyond my powers. Therefore
this idea must have been impressed upon me by the existing reality which is absolute perfection.
Such a being exists. Thus am I aware, with full certitude, of the existence of God. No God, the
all-perfect, would not, in fact, be all-perfect if He were in any sense a deceiver. Therefore, He has
given me reliable, and not deceiving, knowing-powers. These, of course, are limited, for I am
limited myself. My senses and my mind may not present reality to me perfectly, but what they
present is reality. Of the bodily world I can be sure, at the least, that it actually exists as an
extended or bodily reality. In point of fact, Descartes was a devout believer, yet one who believed
that the mathematical certainty of material reality and the spiritual certainty of God were
separated from one another, since all a priori truths cannot be accepted.
The human mind, says Descartes, is essentially thought. A bodily being is, in its essence,
extension. Plants and brutes are not truly alive; they have no life-principle or soul; they are
splendid automata, fine pieces of machinery that the Creator operates. Man has the only type of
soul there is: it is a thinking, a reasoning soul.
Descartes is not the only philosopher/thinker of influence in his time. He is among others, and
can be contrasted easily with the mathematician/philosopher Pascal, who argued with Descartes
over the existence of a vacuum (Descartes no, Pascal yes). Pascal was brilliant at mathematics, in
physics, and as an engineer. Pascal wrote a great deal on the importance not of the cognitive,
thinking individual but of the importance of the heart: "The heart has its reasons ..." By "heart" he
does not mean sentiment, but rather a deep-seated intuitive truth that must be taken into account
along with observed reality.
The importance of Cartesian dualism is in its lasting effects, not in its arguments per se. What
Descartes managed to do, or to represent, is the total rejection of authority and inherited wisdom
as the foundation for knowledge and for truth. To find truth one begins with the self, a self shorn
of all presuppositions so that clarity may be achieved.

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Descartes:

Descartes and the Cartesian "Split" -- Foundation of Modern Thought

Descartes' Argument, oversimplified:

Why Descartes? What is the argument that is so influential?

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