Mind-Body

Descartes’s conception of mind-body

1) Descartes’s puts forth the argument that the mind and body are distinct substances because the body is always divisible and the mind (soul) is completely indivisible. He argues that as a thinking being, one can clearly and distinct perceive an absolute unity and entirety vis-à-vis the body that entails different “parts”.
2) Descartes argues that there is an essential “unity” or “fusion” between the mind and body. Descartes’s thinks that we know nothing formally (in itself) but only eminently (in our minds) and all sensory knowledge or ideas are given to the mind (albeit without the mind’s consent) by our faculty of sensibility. As an intelligent thinking being whose essence is only to think (attribute: thought), one exists since one’s essence is to think. This is surmised in the famous (although problematic) cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am. But the idea of the ‘body’ as an extended corporeal substance cannot be clearly and distinctly perceived like the body in the mind.
3) As a corollary, the Cartesian skepticism of our sensibility arises where one cannot be certain of ideas given by the corporeal extended substance. Descartes find it problematic that ideas occur in one’s thought without one’s volition and more cardinally, that ideas given by sensory perception (bodies) are very obscure and confused or doubtful and uncertain. Modes or affections like ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ or pain that the body feels are confused modes of thinking. He gives the example of how the star situated afar can look similar to the flame of the candle or in approaching the flame, one feels heat and with greater proximity; a distant objects may look the same size from afar when objectively they are not; we assume same qualities in flame and heat; we can be beguiled by our taste which in tasting something sweet associates it with the pleasant although it might be poisonous and continues consuming it; thirst our throat feels can make us drink although our bodies are sick and should avoid water.

Hence, as a consequence, man as soul or thinking substance is always prone to misunderstanding and misconstruing the order of nature because our sense perceptions do not give us certain and direct knowledge but confused and obscure ones. The problem Descartes faces thus stems from how he conceives the ontological-metaphysical connection between the mind and body that causes epistemological skepticism.

Spinoza’s rectification of Descartes’s arguments

Spinoza argues primarily that everything inheres in Nature (God). Extension like thought are two of the many infinite attributes that God as an infinite being (with the most reality and perfection) has. Hence, as a finite being has ideas, God can think infinite ideas and they manifest as the multiplicity of modes all belonging to God. Everything in nature is hence God’s active essence and God being perfect will act coherently from the necessity of his nature as a thinking and extended substance as we know him by.

Since idea(s) are concepts of the mind that our mind inheres because it is a thinking being (or have attribute: thought), God who has two identifiable (by us) attribute thought and extension is able to by his faculty of thought have infinite concepts or ideas (since he is a perfect infinite being) in his mind. As a corollary, by P4, God has infinite intellect and begets infinite modes of which man (soul) is a finite mode or singular thing with a determinate existence existing as one of the infinite many ideas of God. Hence, God can be said to ‘cause’ man or there is an idea of man (man as who is himself formal being of ideas – man’s thought – since we must consider modes of each attribute under the attribute of which they are modes) as part of his infinite ideas flowing from God’s attribute of thought – when considered under the attribute of thought. By P8, this applies even to non-existences.

Most cardinally, since there is only one substance in nature, all attributes (thought and extension) and subsequently all modes of thought and extension will inhere in this one substance (God). So, since everything belongs equally to the same genesis God, the order and connection of ideas (thought) must be the same as the order of connection of things (extension or as extended modes or manifestations) [by P7] which all follows from God’s essence and hence, follows necessarily from nature. Since all modes (or ideas) to be found in nature inheres in God’s essence and expresses God’s nature in a certain, determinate and necessary way, then ideas in our minds will not be as Descartes perceive it to be, confused and obscure. For God as an infinite being, the only cause of all things as even Descartes argues inheres all modes or the all of nature, all ideas must hence flow from God’s thought necessarily and certainly.

More specifically put, the essence of man as a thinking being is a mode itself which constitutes many ideas in his minds which are also modes of thinking albeit are modifications and affections of man which can all be traced back to God. Since modes are by definition modifications or affections, so [by A3], there will be no modes of thinking (like love; desire) unless the individual as a thinking being is affected by it and thinks it or more specifically put, have an idea (of love; desire) in his mind. Hence, [by P11] all ideas if they appear in the individual’s mind have a necessary or actual exists. This is thus a stark contrast from Descartes’s notion of how affections or sensibility in his terms can give us confused ideas.

Moreover if all modes (actual and possible) exist necessarily in God as given and predetermined from God’s infinite essence, then we can be sure of the objects of the ideas we have that constitute our minds since they are modes of God that exists necessarily from his nature. Thus, if we have an idea of our body, firstly, there will be no doubt about it and secondly, we will be able to perceive all modifications of the body (at rest, different motion etc) since we perceive the body as an idea in our mind. Moreover as shown, since body exists in our minds, then it exists necessarily and actually [P7].

Hence, contrary to Descartes who poses a serious question to our knowledge that we can derive from our body, Spinoza argues that we can know with surety our ideas because all causal connections in nature are in someway predetermined as part of the infinite essence and intellect of God. Yet if so, wherein lies human agency or freedom? Are we all reduced to Leibneizian like monads or automatons?