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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page research paper/essay that examines what two articles say about dualism and Descartes and then offers the writer's personal observations. Dualism maintains that the mind and the body are distinctly separate entities (Calef). The dualism espoused by Rene Descartes expresses this philosophy in its "most radical form" (Palmer 114). First by looking at what author Donald Palmer has to say about dualism in his text Does the Center Hold? (1996) and then comparing this with further comment by Scott Calef of Ohio Wesleyan University, this examination lays the foundation for formulating personal observations on the validity of this philosophical perspective. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khdual2.rtf
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114). First by looking at what author Donald Palmer has to say about dualism in his text Does the Center Hold? (1996) and then comparing this with further comment by
Scott Calef of Ohio Wesleyan University, this examination lays the foundation for formulating personal observations on the validity of this philosophical perspective. Descartes asserts that the human body is
"an extended thing," that has these characteristics: "extension, size, shape, location, divisibility, motion and rest" (Palmer 114). The opposite of the body is the mind, which Descartes describes as "a
thing which thinks" (Palmer 114). The mind "doubts, understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses...(and) also imagines and feels" (Palmer 114). Dualism comprehends these realms of human experience as being completely
separate and different from each other. While Descartes acknowledges that the body and the mind/soul are intimately conjoined, in Meditation IV, he argues that his identity is completely contained
within the realm of the mind (Palmer 115). The body is only an "extended and unthinking thing," and this soul is actually who he is and "entirely and absolutely distinct"
from the body and "can exist without it" (Palmer 115). This conceptualization of the human mind/body relationship pictures the body as rather like a suit of clothes that the mind
"wears" but has nothing to do with the actual internal identity of the individual. The British philosopher Gilbert Rye referred to this concept as the "the ghost in the machine"
(Palmer 116). But while Descartes supports this conceptualization, he also points out that the relationship of the mind to the body is not detached, not as if the mind
were a "sailor" who, by sight, has to check to see if his vessel is damaged (Palmer 116). This, of course, brings up the question as to how, if
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