‘The fact that I have doubts about the body, or deny that it exists, does not bring it about that no body exists’
Argu from clear distiction. (6th med argu)
Moving on from the Discourse, the Sixth Meditation offers an argument for the real distinction between mind and body. In other words it offers an argument for bridging the gap between the fact that I am nothing but a thinking thing that it follows that nothing else belongs to me (not merely that the body may not belong to me). However our intuitive response to this is that it seems that Descartes in offering such an argument is rather tautologous because how is saying that I am nothing but a thinking thing different from saying what he had previously done (i.e. that he cannot doubt, so knows, he is thinking but can doubt that the body exists)?
To deal with this successfully Descartes needs to show firstly that a thinking thing can exist as a substance whose sole essence is thought (non extension), secondly that a body can exist as a substance whose sole essence in extension and lastly that the two are mutually exclusive and therefore distinct. However it is not made clear from this how it is possible to arrive at the third assumption from the first two. There is a need to make further assumptions such as both mind and body are substances, that is they can exist independently of each other.
Descartes relies on the ‘mutually exclusive’ point to prove the real distinction between mind and body, (i.e. that they have no common attributes). If these further assumptions are not made it is possible that mind and body may each exhibit common attributes, which will lead to the collapse of his ‘real distinction’ argument.
It appears the answer lies in the progress that has been made since the Second Meditation. In the Second Meditation, the meditator cannot doubt that he exists as a thinking thing but can doubt the existence of body. From this he concludes that his perceptions present mind and body as distinct, but he cannot rule out that mind and body, unknown to him, may still be identical. Once it has been proved to him in the Forth Meditation that ‘everything which we clearly and distinctively understand is true’, the meditator can in the Sixth Meditation argue from clear and distinct perceptions of mind and body to the real distinction. By making such a claim Descartes implies that all bodily attributes are discarded from the self (as a thinking thing), his perceptions are now seen to portray accurately the real essence (i.e. the non extension and extension) of mind and body. Copied from first para p 248 orange book
However merely because I can perceive mind as separate from the body does not show that the two substances are distinct? At first it seems that a similar objection can apply as the one mentioned about the Discourse argument. For example one can perceive that a triangle has a right angle but may not be able to perceive that the sum of the square of the two shortest sides equals the square of the longest side. Using the same logic as Descartes has done with mind and body it would imply that these two properties of a triangle are mutually exclusive. However this is not possible because ‘not even God could bring [this] about’.
However Descartes’ reply attempts to keep this criticism a bay. He demolishes the analogy by saying that his reasoning uniquely applies to the mind and body. He says that the mind and body can exist completely on their own unlike a triangle and its properties can. For without its properties a triangle would not be a triangle. second para p 114 cottingham
Cartesian dualism and its [probs
P119-122 cottingham brown book
Despite this there remains a central problem with the Cartesian drawn relationship between the body and the mind. This is that it ignores the possibility that thinking may require certain physical attributes such as a brain. By providing a distinction between mind and body Descartes makes it sound as if thinking is a clear process but modern scientific knowledge shows that it is a complex area. In essence Descartes leaves the possibility that the thing doing thinking may be extended just as it may not be extended.
Furthermore it is quite possible that a mental change can cause a physical change. For example, the decision to lift a leg (a mental act) results in the actual upward movement of the leg (a physical act). Descartes acknowledges this possibility yet he holds that the mind and body are distinct, since he believes he has shown that they are mutually exclusive. This raises confusion, as how can the mind affect the body and vice versa if there is no common ground at all?
Can continue form cottingham here p119-120
Later in the Sixth Meditation Descartes reinforces his point that mind and body are really distinct because they have no property in common by proposing a similar argument. This time he attributes the distinction to the idea that mind is indivisible whilst body is divisible. However this too fails on similar grounds.
conclusion
The argument found in the Sixth Meditation (AT II 78) in summary provides a way to draw the ‘real distinction’ between mind and body. This way is ‘the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another’. It also asserts that that which is thinking can exist on its own. Furthermore it asserts that such a thinking thing as no features in common with the corporal body. However the last statement remains to be demonstrated, thus the whole argument collapses. Therefore the idea that mind and body are distinct remains not a certainty, but a mere possibility.
