Robert DeGregoris
Sister Mary
René Descartes on Substance
and
Mind-Body Dualism
In Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes sets out to form a new philosophy or way of thinking for the people of his time. He wants to place his philosophy on the same truthful and certain pedestal as the sciences and mathematics. He writes a letter to renowned theologians of his time explaining the faults of prior philosophical works, specifically those of Aristotle. In his “Letter of Dedication to those Most Wise and Distinguished Men, the Deans and Doctors of the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris,” Descartes first addresses what he plans to achieve in his writing of “Meditations on the First Philosophy.” Descartes explains that he will prove the existence of God and the immortality of the Soul through reason, rather than faith alone. Many of his contemporaries have admitted that through reason alone it is either difficult or impossible to prove the existence of God and the soul, and that it is faith which keeps them believers. Descartes employs a system of hyperbolic doubt, in which he doubts the truth of all his beliefs in order to determine which beliefs he could be certain were true. The belieifs that passed his sytem of doubt, Descartes specified, were those that could be held undubitable. Descartes’ goal is to seek out indubitable principles on which to build a new foundation for a new philosophy.
In Meditation I, Descatres’ first order of business is to call into doubt all of his previous beliefs. He even goes so far as to doubt the information given to him by his five senses. “I first realized how numerous were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, ...