Philosophy of mind Essay

?The theory of Dualism refers to the idea that a substance is made up of two fundamental components; mind and matter. The mind component of Dualism refers to thinking and consciousness without an extension into space, whereas, the matter component of Dualism refers to a substance which pertains physical properties which extends into space. The essential essence of the mind is thought, while the essence of the body is extension, which is examined in Renee Descartes’ Six Meditation in which he explores the ontological distinction between mind and matter. Descartes argues that God only allows us to perceive that which exists, otherwise he would be known to be deceitful. Furthermore, one can perceive two separate entities as complete things whose principal attributes exclude one another, therefore, God can also separate these entities to allow them to exist without one another. This point goes on to demonstrate that if two entities can exist in separation, regardless of whether they do or they don’t, they really are distinct of one another. Ultimately, in relation to Cartesian Dualism, the mind cannot be perceived as a substance which pertains to an extension, and subsequently matter is clearly perceived as a substance to which the mind does not pertain. Descartes goes on to highlight that due to the aforementioned reasons, the mind and body can exist separate of each other, concluding that they are distinct. a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa In response to Descartes’ input on Dualism, Jaegwon Kim essentially puts forward the idea that objects that are intangible, such as the mind, cannot interact with tangible objects located in space, however, they’re also unable to react causally to any other object as well. In essence, Kim aims to demonstrate that intangible things have an inability to form causal relationships in any manner with any object. Ultimately Kim suggests that due to intangible things inability to form causal relationships with other objects, it makes the ideas Dualism puts forward in relation to intangible objects, useless and invalid. Kim’s causal pairing problem causes trouble for the idea of Dualism and it renders it as useless and somewhat invalid for the reason that it demonstrates that intangible things such as the mind essentially are unable to interact with tangible objects as there is no correlation between causes and effects. Bibliography.