René Descartes is regarded by many modern scholars to be one the most influential philosophers of his age due to his writings and the invention of analytic geometry. The Cartesian method was a method employed by René in which he doubted everything he knew until he could be able to prove for certain that what he knew was true. This method led to the break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy which was prevalent at the time, and instead led to the introduction of a new modern mechanistic model (Descartes, Rene | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). The essay will discuss the Cartesian method and the problems generated by the use of this method.
When Descartes began pursuing knowledge, he decided to doubt everything and see whether anything remained after this process (Mitchell, & Alcérreca, 2011). Whatever would survive this test would, therefore, be considered certain, since what was in his mind up to now, had been told by someone else without questioning the legitimacy of the source. Descartes, therefore, uses the Cartesian method to write several meditations such as Cogito ergo sum which when translated means “I think, therefore I am” and the mind-body problem (Mitchell, & Alcérreca, 2011).
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The mind-body problem is a philosophical puzzle which tries to establish the relationship between the mind and the body (Moravia, & Staton, 1995). The mind-body problem arises in the course of meditations when Descartes concludes that the mind and the body are distinct. He argues that the mind is a substance unique and different from the body and that it can be understood well enough without the help of the body. Descartes goes further to argue the possibility of the mind existing on its own without the body ( Descartes, Rene | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). This conclusion is not easily accepted by other philosophers and therefore led to problems and being challenged. Descartes tries to solve this problem by explaining that the mind is an immaterial thing whereas the body is a material thing but lacks any form of thinking in itself. This implies that the mind and body as substances have their own uniqueness. For instance, the mind has only understanding while the body has shape and quantity or a form of motion. Bodies, however, cannot have an understanding on their own and neither can minds acquire shape or motion.
Since Descartes proposed solution failed to explain how two completely different substances interact casually other philosophers such as Pierre Gassendi have come forth and published works to respond to this problem. Pierre argues that the mind has to be able to come into contact with the body for it to move. Another philosopher who contributed to this problem was Baruch Spinoza. Baruch's proposal, however, was just like Descartes'; it solved a problem by creating another. For Spinoza, the mind-body problem could be solved by considering that both thinking and extension to be attributes (Mitchell, & Alcérreca, 2011). Leibniz too tried to solve this problem by reducing the world to a single substance. For Spinoza however, that substance talked about by Leibniz was God and everything else was seen to be an attribute. Leibniz, therefore, called the primary substance a ‘monad’ (Mitchell, & Alcérreca, 2011). Leibniz's solution is the best since it viewed both the mind and body as monads which mean that each is a unique entity created by God instead of viewing it as a random substance which cannot function without the other.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that René Descartes was a genius philosopher of his time and paved way for modern philosophers. His Cartesian method was ideal as it enabled him to question all that he had been taught to know and helped him write the meditations and the invention of analytic geometry. In the course of his meditations, however, he generates a mind-body problem which caught the attention of many including philosophers such as Leibniz and Spinoza. Each philosopher comes up which solutions to try to address this problem and Leibniz successfully provides the best solution,
References
Descartes, Rene | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . (2017). Iep.utm.edu . Retrieved 3 June 2017, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/
Mitchell, H., & Collado Alcérreca, A. (2011). Roots of Wisdom: A Tapestry of Philosophical Traditions (1st ed.). México: Cengage Learning.
Moravia, S., & Staton, S. (1995). The Enigma of the Mind (1st ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
