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In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either that mental phenomena are non-physical, [1] or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. [2] 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.
Illustration of mind–body dualism by René Descartes.Inputs are passed by the sensory organs to the pineal gland, and from there to the immaterial spirit.. The mind–body problem is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind and body.
Interactionism was propounded by the French rationalist philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), and continues to be associated with him. Descartes posited that the body, being physical matter, was characterized by spatial extension but not by thought and feeling, while the mind, being a separate substance, had no spatial extension but could think and feel. [2]
A human was, according to Descartes, a composite entity of mind and body. Descartes gave priority to the mind and argued that the mind could exist without the body, but the body could not exist without the mind. In The Meditations, Descartes even argues that while the mind is a substance, the body is composed only of "accidents". [106]
Illustration of mind–body dualism by René Descartes. Inputs are passed by the sensory organs to the pineal gland, and from there to the immaterial spirit. The mind–body problem concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between minds, or mental processes, and bodily states or processes. [1]
In philosophy, the Cartesian Self, or Cartesian subject, a concept developed by the philosopher René Descartes within his system of mind–body dualism, is the term provided [citation needed] for a separation between mind and body as posited by Descartes.
Descartes, who was most famous for the assertion "I think therefore I am", has had a lot of influence on the mind–body problem. He describes his theory of mental substance (which he calls res cogitans distinguishing it from the res extensa) in the Second Meditation (II.8) and in Principia Philosophiae (2.002).
In the first part of his work, Descartes ponders the relationship between the thinking substance and the body. For Descartes, the only link between these two substances is the pineal gland (art. 31), the place where the soul is attached to the body. The passions that Descartes studies are in reality the actions of the body on the soul (art. 25).