Descartes' Denial

I have written before about how Aristotle's teachings in philosophy set a supreme standard that still holds today—2500 years later. His reputation is so firm and strong that he is often referred to as simply “The Philosopher.” His teachings on science (called “natural philosophy” in his time), however, were subsequently shown to be mostly wrong. Unfortunately, his status was so towering that his errors prevailed for two millennia. The fact that the Catholic Church's teachings aligned with Aristotle's ideas helped to extend his theories over that long period of time.

Rene Descartes, in the 17^th century, began to speak out against Aristotle's scientific opinions. He was joined by the Irish scientist Robert Boyle, as well as several others. Both of them especially rebelled against the complex (and confusing) concept of “form,” which was championed by both Aristotle and Plato. Form, they believed, is the essential nature of something—a very abstract idea that says little about its particular qualities, and says nothing about what caused that something’s form.

Descartes and Boyle argued that the ancient concept of form is too vague and offers little help for allowing one to understand the important, causal physical properties of something, as well as how it behaves. They put forth instead what they called a corpuscular view of matter, proposing that all matter is constituted of tiny particles called corpuscles—a couple of centuries before the existence of atoms was proven.

They maintained that corpuscles move, bounce against, and connect to each other, and that their behavior is governed by the laws of motion—laws which had been expressed a few years earlier by Galileo Galilei. The Church tried one last shot at promoting Aristotle’s notion of forms, when a Jesuit, Francisco Sucrez, proposed that every object has a soul. Just as the human soul guides people from the inside, the soul of a tree guides its qualities from within and causes its form. It was a supernatural, not a scientific, explanation, however.

Descartes rejected this idea as even worse than Aristotle's teaching, because he was sure that inanimate objects could not have a soul. His—and Boyle's—idea was that the corpuscular theory provided a simple, mechanical world view. The activity of corpuscles drove the behavior of the parts of an object; it behaved like a machine. In fact, Descartes said that the body of living creatures is also like a machine, and does not require a soul.

Descartes soon displaced Aristotle, regarding the nature of matter. His and Boyle's ideas played a huge role in the scientific advances that occurred during the Enlightenment (late 17^th, into 18^th centuries). Nobody is perfect, however, and Descartes later expanded upon his views; saying that animals are machine-like and possess no soul, as humans do. He maintained that animals—being like machines—have no feelings, and do not therefore experience pain. It was another couple of hundred years before this concept was debunked—a period of time when physical harm to animals was deemed acceptable. As a result, we are finally beginning to treat animals with appropriate respect... well, except those we raise for meat.

Tripartite Tenets—Part 1

How do we define a being—in particular, a human being? Of course, we could defer to biology for a definition of a living entity, which describes it as possessing certain characteristics; or to the dictionary, which defines a being as “the nature or essence of a person.” Now, that definition is a bit of an anthropocentric perspective, since it could be argued that a dog or a bat is also a being, and that they have their own essence.

But sticking with the human arena for the moment, there is widespread acceptance that we Homo sapiens are a tripartite entity which consists of a body, a mind, and a soul. It's the union of these three qualities that makes me, me. Each of us is a unique human being, whose body, mind, and soul comprise who we are, and the combination makes each one of us distinct.

Not everyone agrees with this perspective, however. Some would argue that there is no such thing as the soul—that each of us is really a bipartite being. To take a closer look, let me consider the nature of each of these three components of a human being—starting with the least controversial one: the body.

The body is the only one of the three that is a material entity. All of our senses—sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste—will confirm that indeed we have a body. It can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted. I can use any one—or all—of my senses to convince me that the body is real. There's little disagreement that our corporeal essence exists.

How about the mind? Although none of our senses can unequivocally prove it, each of us is quite certain that we do have a mind. It may be immaterial, but common sense and experience tell us that our mind is real—just as real as the body. In fact, Rene Descartes, some 400 years ago, reasoned that our mind is the only real thing about our being that we can be sure of. In a deeply skeptical analysis, he concluded that, although we might be deluded about our body, we can be sure that we are thinking, and thus we exist—even if the only real aspect of us is our mind.

Descartes' thinking aside, how do we know that we have a mind, if we cannot see it or touch it? Many historical arguments and scientific experiments offer us evidence of its reality, yet it remains a diaphanous thing. Is it measurable? Can it be proven? Most of us are convinced we do have a mind—an aspect of us that enables us to be aware, to have experiences, to think (Descartes' point), and to feel. It's the basic faculty of our consciousness.

Modern science has provided lots of evidence for the existence of the mind—through various technologies of brain scans. In fact, the body and mind are intimately connected. Yet many questions remain. How does an immaterial entity like the mind influence, or even direct, the material body? Where does the mind reside—in the brain? Throughout the body? Or even outside the body? Can the mind survive the body's death? Might it be possible some day to upload the mind into a computer and thus achieve some kind of immortality?

More tripartite tenets next time...

René's Response (1/17/17)

There have been countless words strung together in response to René Descartes' cryptic quote; “Cogito ergo sum”. This Latin phrase of his is usually translated as “I think, therefore I am.” For most of us who can't read or speak Latin or who are not steeped in Enlightenment philosophy, Descartes' quip sounds very erudite, but what the hell did he mean? Is its significance of any relevance to the average modern mind?

I confess to feeling rather confused when I ponder René's response. I've read numerous interpretations over the years, but comprehension of “Cogito ergo sum” still pretty much escapes me. Then I recently read an article in the New Yorker magazine that helped me get a much better handle on the meaning of this phrase, in an article by Adam Kirsch, who is on the faculty of Columbia University. What really helped me was to get some background on 17^th century thinking in Europe, to see the context in which Descartes was pondering the weighty quandaries of existence.

As the Enlightenment unfolded, the West was the world's economic, military, and intellectual leader. Western science was flowering and, in the process, was refuting much of Christianity's long-established dogma. As people's minds were being freed to open to new realities, their old truths were having to be abandoned. No, the Earth is not at the center of the universe. No, many of the supernatural explanations you've counted on for ages are now seen to be false. No, the paths of the planets are not determined by the perfection of God's “harmony of the spheres,” but by simple physical laws discovered by Isaac Newton. The list goes on.

In short, much of the old certainty was being cast aside, and it rattled many people. There were so many new facts and verities flooding the Western mind that people felt cast adrift. Where were they now supposed to anchor their convictions? Many of their previous ways of thinking were being trashed. What was reality? What was truth? What was illusion? Is there anything people could count on?

Descartes was a philosopher and many people at the time turned to philosophers—if only because these thinkers had been pondering these same questions for centuries. One of the unique qualities of philosophy is that there are no final answers to the big questions of life. Humans may have found a definitive answer in the 17^th century as to why the planets did their dance, but the same philosophical questions that had puzzled Socrates and his fellow Greek sages 2000 years earlier were still being examined and debated by Enlightenment thinkers; as they are today.

One crucial thing that science did in the Enlightenment period was that, as it led to truths, it helped people understand that our human senses give us but a partial understanding of reality. So what can I believe in? What can I count on? Descartes pondered these questions. He decided to go back to the beginning, to doubt everything, to strip one's existence to the bare bone. After doing so, he wondered if there is anything one can be certain of? Is the world real? Do my senses tell me anything about the actual world? Do I even exist?

His conclusion: the only thing I can believe in is the fact that I'm thinking; that I'm conscious. My mind—being the only thing I can experience—must be real. Without my mind, there's no me. So I am thinking, thus I must exist. He stripped it back to the basics; back to the only thing we can count on and experience: the workings of our mind. With that fundamental reality, I can then conclude that I must be. Then, with that grounding, one could rebuild one's worldview.