Does Dualism Provide a Satisfactory account of the mind?
It is my conclusion that dualism does not provide a satisfactory account of the nature of the mind, and I shall attempt to illustrate the major flaws in the argument for dualism as Descartes puts forward.As hinted to above, the argument for dualism is effectively put forward in Rene Descartes' 2nd Meditation. To summarise it, Descartes line of argument begins with methodological doubt, a question of what he can be sure of in the world. He identifies that he can doubt the existence of his physical body, (e.g. Film: The Matrix). He achieves this by suggesting that because when dreaming, you can often not tell the difference between those dreams and reality as it is when we are 'awake'; and thus how can we really be sure that we are not always in some kind of dream-like state with no real bodies. So when he holds out his hands when in a dream, he is in-fact not holding out his hands at all. It is all going on in his mind, not in reality. This is referred to as his argument of Dream Conjecture. "Can you be certain that your life is not simply a dream? If not, then you cannot be certain that the physical world around you exists."Many people have confused the dream world with the real world, at some point or other, and
thus have been surprised when they wake up to find that they were not in reality prior to waking. Though the dream-world is often very different from reality, our perspective from within our minds is also different when in a dreaming state, and thus it is very common for people to be unable to differentiate between dreams and 'reality' when they are in fact dreaming. However, it seems that the identity of the thoughts is being questioned, as opposed to the actual existence of them. Almost amusingly, Descartes believed that the interface between the mind and body was in fact in some kind of gland in the brain. In conclusion, from the weaknesses in this argument for dualism there are, (namely Descartes' intensional fallacy, the problems of characterization and interaction), I feel that dualism does not provide a satisfactory account of the nature of the mind. Because Descartes is exposed to illusions when asleep, and because there are no conclusive signs between being awake and asleep, then it is fairly logical to conclude that at no point can Descartes be entirely confident that he does, in-fact, have a physical body. This therefore suggests Descartes argument to be invalid. "Because a dualist argues that the mind in not a material thing, this throws up the question of what in fact it is. Further more, how is it that a material substance can interface with an immaterial substance? This is known as the problem on interaction. There are too many holes in the argument to make it sound, though that is not to say that it is entirely refutable. Nietzsche argues that a collective of thoughts need not belong to an actual person, and that we can only be certain that there are thoughts. ), but at no point do they attempt to actually explain what it IS!.
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