Max Gould 1
Essentially Non-Thinking
"I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing" 1 This premise serves as the basic
assumption underlying Descartes' theory of dualism. Descartes goes on to describe bodies
as essentially extended but non-thinking entities, and minds as thinking but essentially
non-extended entities. From these premises, Descartes concludes that minds and bodies
cannot be identical because they do not share certain essential properties. Furthermore,
because Descartes perceives himself as a thinking, non-extended entity, he concludes that
he is essentially a mind not a body. This of course requires the further assumption that
everything is either a mind or a body.
Two other arguments Descartes uses to defend dualism are as follows:
Descartes suggests that, though the body may be separated into pieces, the mind cannot
(e.g. if you loose your arm, part of your mind does not go with it). Because something cannot be
both divisible and indivisible, Descartes concludes that the mind is not identical to the body.
Another argument Descartes provides is an argument from conceivability. Descartes
suggests that he can clearly and distinctly conceive of his mind as being separate from his body. It
follows then that any two things that could be conceived of as separate cannot be identical,
because something cannot be separated from itself.
These are Descartes' main arguments in favor of dualism.
Descartes proceeds from the assumption that thinking, or consciousness, is an
essential property of the mind. However, this is not necessarily the case. Thinking as a
function of the mind involves the interpretation of perceptions and the conceptualization
of meta-physical concepts. I don't think anyone would deny that when Descartes was
coming up with his theory of dualism that he was thinking. So of course Descartes
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conceives of his mind as thinking, because whenever he conceives of anything, he is by
definition thinking.
Suppose that Descartes gets knocked unconscious. Is Descartes capable of
conceiving of himself while unconscious? While one is unconscious, one's body
continues to function normally, so clearly there is no imposition of the body that prevents
Descartes from telling us of his conceptions of himself while he is unconscious if he
could. And even if some disjunction between the mind and body were to prevent him
from doing so, he would undoubtedly be able to inform us of his conceptions when he
regained consciousness. But from everything we know about the state, no one is aware
of, or remembers, being unconscious while in that state. So it follows that the mind is not
conscious and in fact not thinking while one is unconscious. It follows then that thinking
cannot be an essential property of the mind since it can exist without it.
There are several objections Descartes could raise in response to this theory. The
first would likely be that, even in an unconscious state, there is still some amount of
imperceptible thinking going on. Though one may not be able to conceive of oneself
while unconscious, or undergo any kind of higher level thought processes, the mind still
engages in some basic function of thinking, simply because it is an essential property of
the mind.
Descartes might also suggest that while one is unconscious, the mind in fact does
not exist at all, "For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally
cease to exist" 2. This is why when one becomes unconscious there is such a danger of
never regaining consciousness, because unless one begins thinking again, one might
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cease to exist forever. Should the mind ever become separated from the body, it would
stand to reason that it might not be able to reestablish its connection with it.
However, how could one be capable of thinking if one no longer exists? It seems
to me that Descartes could not claim that the mind ceases to exist while unconscious
because one cannot think if one's mind doesn't even exist. Unless the body possesses
some capability of thought (which would violate another of Descartes' basic premises),
no thinking can occur to bring one back into existence. This creates a major problem for
Descartes, since he has defined thinking and existence as being synonymous, he has no
way of explaining the transition between existence and non-existence while unconscious.
Descartes' other objection seems much more reasonable and avoids the messy
existence problem raised in the last paragraph. It is certainly reasonable to suggest that
the mind is engaged in low level thought processes while unconscious that one is simply
unaware of and therefore unable to discuss or even understand. However, this too is
somewhat problematic for Descartes as it suggests the existence of a sub-conscious. One
of Descartes secondary arguments for the mind/body distinction was that the mind is not
divisible. However, when one is unconscious, if some sub-conscious is still functioning
and thinking while the primary consciousness is incapacitated, it follows that the mind
can be divided into multiple levels of consciousness and can even be cut off from some of
them under certain circumstances.
It is possible to use Descartes' own conceivability argument to show that the mind
is divisible. Because I can conceive of the sub-conscious as being separate from the
super-conscious, it follows that they are not identical. Furthermore, we know that severe
strokes among other things can leave people in a permanent unconscious state, or
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vegetable state. This would suggest that one's sub-conscious can not be only temporarily
separated from one's super-conscious, but can in fact be entirely cut off from one's superconscious.
Descartes offers a number of arguments for his theory of dualism (i.e. mind ≠
body). However, his assumption that the mind has this property, that it is essentially a
thinking thing, lacks a thorough investigation of the validity of such a claim. In fact, in
exploring this issue, it seems likely that for such a claim to be true, his argument from
divisibility would have to be false, to allow for the existence of a sub-conscious.
Descartes' theories are interesting, but he makes many assumptions that don't seem to be
completely thought out. Certainly the divisibility of the mind and "thinking" as its
essential property, while seemingly compatible ideas, appear to in fact be contradictory.
While dualism may be a viable philosophical viewpoint, it requires far more rigorous
testing than that which Descartes subjected it to.
1. Descartes, 6th Meditation: Paragraph 9
2. Descartes, 2nd Meditation: Paragraph 6