Mind-Body Dualism
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either that mental phenomena are non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, as well as between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.
Aristotle shared Plato’s view of multiple souls and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals, and humans: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism that all three share; a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure, and desire that only humans and other animals share; and the faculty of reason that is unique to humans only. In this view, a soul is the hylomorphic form of a viable organism, wherein each level of the hierarchy formally supervenes upon the substance of the preceding level. For Aristotle, the first two souls, based on the body, perish when the living organism dies, whereas there remains an immortal and perpetual intellective part of mind. For Plato, however, the soul was not dependent on the physical body; he believed in metempsychosis, the migration of the soul to a new physical body. It has been considered a form of reductionism by some philosophers, since it enables the tendency to ignore very big groups of variables by its assumed association with the mind or the body, and not for its real value when it comes to explaining or predicting a studied phenomenon.
Dualism is closely associated with the thought of René Descartes (1641), who holds that the mind is a nonphysical—and therefore, non-spatial—substance. Descartes clearly identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the physical brain as the seat of intelligence. Hence, he was the first documented Western philosopher to formulate the mind–body problem in the form in which it exists today. However, the theory of substance dualism has many advocates in contemporary philosophy such as Richard Swinburne, William Hasker, J. P. Moreland, E. J. Low, Charles Taliaferro, Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad, and John Foster.
Dualism is contrasted with various kinds of monism. Substance dualism is contrasted with all forms of materialism, but property dualism may be considered a form of non-reductive physicalism.
The term “Cartesian split” primarily refers to the philosophical concept of Cartesian dualism, the separation of mind and body into two distinct, fundamental substances: the non-physical mind and the physical body. While this is a core philosophical idea, the term can also be used to describe its wider implications, such as the “Cartesian anxiety” of feeling a lack of stable knowledge, or a psychological “Cartesian split” complex.
Cartesian dualism (mind-body split)
- Philosophical origin: This idea was most famously advocated by René Descartes, who argued that the mind (𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑠) and body (𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑎) are two different types of substance that cannot be reduced to one another.
- Nature of the split: The mind is the site of thought and consciousness, while the body is a material, physical machine governed by the laws of physics.
- The mind-body problem: A major challenge arising from this dualism is explaining how a non-physical mind can interact with a physical body.
Wider interpretations of the “Cartesian split”
- Cartesian anxiety: A philosophical concept describing the conflict of feeling a lack of a solid foundation for knowledge or an inescapable groundlessness in reality.
- Psychological complex: In a Jungian sense, the “Cartesian Split” is seen as a psychological complex stemming from the emphasis on abstract, “masculine” rational thought, which often devalues emotion and the body.
- Societal consequences: Some critics argue the dualism has led to a devaluation of emotions and physical experience, impacting fields like medicine, by treating the mind and body as separate.
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[1] wikipedia/en/Cartesian_anxiety
[2] https://www.routledge.com/The-Cartesian-Split-A-Hidden-Myth/Short/p/book/9780367520489
[3] https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/context/etd/article/4670/viewcontent/ETD_CISOPTR_3734.pdf
[4] https://people-shift.com/articles/cartesian-dualism-the-mind-body-divide/