The Views Of René Descartes On The Body And Mind

As we grow to become the beings we are, we come across questions throughout our lives that makes us doubt what’s real and what is just our imagination. As humans the experiences we encounter throughout our lifetime are all experiences that develop our thinking and our mind. Is there more to us and the type of individuals we are? Are we put on this Earth for a reason? All these questions make us discuss the way life works. Day by day we go through our daily lives with the same routine and just simply living and dealing with the negatives and positives that hit us. We cannot be certain without proof that there is a reason for who we are, the way we think and the way our body is made up. We are living things, living, breathing, working but with not cause. Therefore, this paper will argue René Descartes’ thoughts of recognizing for certain that there is no certainty in everything.

To begin my thoughts, Descartes states, “anything that claims to have the slightest doubt is false, and until I at least recognize for certain that there is no certainty. ” (Descartes, 173). Descartes words make us understand everything is an experience that is felt until proven certain because we are just living things. Anything that is doubtful is considered to be false, there is no proof as to why things are the way they are, or why the body and mind think the way that they do. There is no certainty until its proven that we’re here for a reason, or no certainty that until it is recognized.

“I will believe that my memory tells me lies, and nothing ever happened. Body. Shape, extension, movement, and place are chimeras. So, what remains true? Perhaps the one fact that nothing is certain. ” (Descartes, 173) by which Descartes means that memory is just an illusion to satisfy the mind, so nothing truly was perceived in the mind therefore nothing ever happened. The meaning of chimera is an illusion or fabrication of the mind. (“Chimera,” def. 2). With that being said, René Descartes discusses that the mind is disguised by what we call “the body”. Our minds and thoughts are hidden to protect others and most importantly us from thinking too much, just how Descartes is. Perhaps the reason we are covering our minds is for our own benefit, and for protection from our thoughts.

Is there a supreme leader? Someone who is controlling our everyday routines and keeping us occupied to get rid of our thoughts that are not proven certain. Descartes words on the world and god:

But I have convinced myself there is absolutely nothing in the world. Does it follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something, then I certainty existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him device me as much as he can. I must conclude that this proposition, I am, exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or convinced in my mind. (Descartes, 174)

There is someone, God, who has supreme power that is telling us we exist. Descartes words tell us that even god is tricking us from our own thoughts and playing with the mind. Everything we do is an experience that is felt within us, whether positive or negative. We experience many things throughout our lifetime and none of it can be true, just a fabrication of what we are wanting to feel. As humans we are still living and breathing; therefore, we are alive and existing and going on with our lives with mental memories of what we do.

Furthermore, we are living in a corpse that we call the human body, lifeless. “the first thought to come to mind was that I had a face, hands, arms, and a whole mechanical structure of limbs identical to a corpse, which I called the body. ” (Descartes, 174) Descartes means by this that even a lifeless corpse is the same as a living one, we have the same feet, hands, and arms just as someone who isn’t living and breathing. Eventually our body decomposes so nothing is left except a soul. Descartes states, “the next thought was that I was nourished, that I moved about, and that I engaged in sense-perception and thinking; and these actions I attributed to the soul. ” (Descartes, 174) Because the soul is something so vulnerable and fragile, it stays fed with our perceptions and meanings of the things we intake. This is important because our soul is the reason why we have the thoughts we have by it being connected to our mind to perceive many things.

Moreover, on the body and soul, Descartes tries to describe a mental conception of the body. René Descartes says,

I would have expressed it as follows: by a body I understand whatever has a determinable shape and definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell, and can be moved in various ways,. . . For, according to my judgement, the power of self-movement, like the power of sensation or of thought was quite foreign to the nature of the body; indeed, it was a source of wonder to me and certain bodies were found to contain faculties of this kind. (Descartes, 174)

This is René Descartes definition of the body, while keeping the logic that the soul is over the mind and is animating part of body. This quote on the definition of the body is important because we see the body as more than just “working things”, the body has all these smaller aspects to it that create our soul. Even science cannot explain the things that Descartes is trying to say about anatomy.

Before the doubting process, Descartes realizes he is living till he has experiences because we are all aware of the experiences around us. “Since I do not have a body, these are mere fabrication. Sense-perception?. . . Thinking?. . . I am a mind, or intelligent, or intellect, or reason – words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now. But for all that I am a thing, which is real and which truly exists. But what kind of thing? As I have just said – a thinking thing. ” (Descartes, 175)