Rene Descartesin ingilizce hayatı
Rene Descartes hayatı
imagesrenedescartesiningilizcehayatinibulurmusunuz5afb4878b55e5
Ren
Descartes Portrait after Frans Hals, 16481 Full name Ren
Descartes Birt 1 March 1596
La Haye en Touraine now Descartes, IndreetLoire, France Death 11 February 1650 (aged 53)
Stockholm, Sweden Schooltradition Cartesianism, Rationalism, Foundationalism Main interests Metaphysics, Epistemology, Science, Mathematics Notable ideas Cogito ergo sum, method of doubt, Cartesian coordinate system, Cartesian dualism, ontological argument for existence of God; regarded as a founder of Modern philosophy
Influenced byshow
Plato, Aristotle, Alhazen,Averroes, Avicenna, alGhazali, Anselm, St Augustine, Aquinas, Ockham, Suarez, Mersenne, Sextus Empiricus, Michel de Montaigne, Duns Scotus
Influenced
Spinoza, Hobbes, Arnauld, Malebranche, Pascal, Locke, Leibniz, More, Kant, Husserl, Brunschvicg, Žižek, Chomsky, Stanley, Dirck Rembrantsz van Nierop
Part of a series on
Ren
Descartes
Cartesianism Rationalism Foundationalism Doubt & Certainty Dream argument Cogito ergo sum Trademark argument Mindbody dichotomy Analytic geometry Coordinate system Cartesian circle Folium Rule of signs Cartesian er Balloonist theory Works The World Discourse on the Method La G
om
trie Meditations on First Philosophy Principles of Philosophy Passions of the Soul Notable People Christina of Sweden Baruch Spinoza Gottfried Leibniz This box: view talk edit
Ren
Descartes (French pronunciation: ʁəne dekaʁt), (31 March 1596 11 February 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius (latinized form),2 was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic He has been dubbed the Father of Modern Philosophy,and much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which continue to be studied closely to this day In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments Descartes' influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system allowing geometric shapes to be expressed in algebraic equations being named for him He is accredited as the father of analytical geometry Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution
Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the Early Modern version of what are now commonly called emotions, he goes so far as to assert that he will write on his topic as if no one had written on these matters before Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like St Augustine In his natural philosophy, he differs from the Schools on two major points: First, he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal to ends ine or natural in explaining natural phenomena In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of Gods act of creation
Descartes was a major figure in 17th century continental rationalism, later advocated by Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, Descartes founded analytic geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of calculus and analysis His most famous statement is: Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I **; OR I ** thinking, therefore I exist), found in §7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (Latin) and in part IV of Discourse on the Method (French)
Biography
Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), IndreetLoire, France When he was one year old, his mother Jeanne Brochard died of tuberculosis His father Joachim was a member in the provincial parliament At the age of eleven, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal HenryLeGrand at La Flèche After graduation, he studied at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalaur
at and License in law in 1616, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer3
I entirely abandoned the study of letters Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of erse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it (Descartes, Discourse on the Method) In the summer of 1618 he joined the army of Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic4 On 10 November 1618, while walking through Breda, Descartes met Isaac Beeckman, who sparked his interest in mathematics and the new physics, particularly the problem of the fall of heavy bodies While in the service of the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, Descartes was present at the Battle of the White Mountain outside Prague, in November 16205
In 1622 he returned to France, and during the next few years spent time in Paris and other parts of Europe He arrived in La Haye in 1623, selling all of his property, investing this remuneration in bonds which provided Descartes with a comfortable income for the rest of his life Descartes was present at the siege of La Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu in 1627
He returned to the Dutch Republic in 1628, where he lived until September 1649 In April 1629 he joined the University of Franeker and the next year, under the name Poitevin, he enrolled at the Leiden University to study mathematics with Jacob Golius and astronomy with Martin Hortensius6 In October 1630 he had a falling out with Beeckman, whom he accused of plagiarizing some of his ideas (though the situation was more likely the reverse) In Amsterdam, he had a relationship with a servant girl, Helène Jans, with whom he had a daughter, Francine, who was born in 1635 in Deventer, at which time Descartes taught at the Utrecht University Francine Descartes died in 1640 in Amersfoort
While in the Netherlands he changed his address frequently, living among other places in Dordrecht (1628), Franeker (1629), Amsterdam (162930), Leiden (1630), Amsterdam (16302), Deventer (16324), Amsterdam (16345), Utrecht (16356), Leiden (1636), Egmond (16368), Santpoort (16381640), Leiden (16401), Endegeest (a castle near Oegstgeest) (16413), and finally for an extended time in EgmondBinnen (16439)
Despite these frequent moves he wrote all his major work during his 20 plus years in the Netherlands, where he managed to revolutionize mathematics and philosophy In 1633, Galileo was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, and Descartes abandoned plans to publish Treatise on the World, his work of the previous four years Discourse on the Methodwas published in 1637 In it an early attempt at explaining reflexes mechanistically is made Descartes also lays out four rules of thought, meant to ensure that our knowledge rests upon a firm foundation
Descartes continued to publish works concerning both mathematics and philosophy for the rest of his life In 1643, Cartesian philosophy was condemned at the University of Utrecht, and Descartes began his long correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia In 1647, he was awarded a pension by the King of France Descartes was interviewed by Frans Burman at EgmondBinnen in 1648
Ren
Descartes died on 11 February 1650 in Stockholm, Sweden, where he had been invited as a teacher for Queen Christina of Sweden The cause of death was said to be pneumonia accustomed to working in bed until noon, he may have suffered a detrimental effect on his health due to Christina's demands for early morning study (the lack of sleep could have severely compromised his immune system) Others believe that Descartes may have contracted pneumonia as a result of nursing a French ambassador, Dejion A Nopeleen, ill with the aforementioned disease, back to health7
In 1663, the Pope placed his works on the Index of Prohibited Books
As a Roman Catholic in a Protestant nation, he was interred in a graveyard mainly used for unbaptized infants in Adolf Fredrikskyrkan in Stockholm Later, his remains were taken to France and buried in the church of SainteGenevièveduMont in Paris His memorial, erected in the 18th century, remains in the Swedish church
Philosophical work
Descartes is often regarded as the first modern thinker to provide a philosophical framework for the natural sciences as these began to develop In his Discourse on the Method he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt To achieve this, he employs a method called hyperbolicalmetaphysical doubt, sometimes also referred to as methodological skepticism: he rejects any ideas that can be doubted, and then reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge8
Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle: thought exists Thought cannot be separated from me, therefore, I exist (Discourse on the Method and Principles of Philosophy) Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum (English: I think, therefore I **) Therefore, Descartes concluded, if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the very fact that he doubted proved his existence The simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is skeptical of existence, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist9
Descartes concludes that he can be certain that he exists because he thinks But in what form? He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been proven unreliable So Descartes concludes that the only indubitable knowledge is that he is a thinking thing Thinking is his essence as it is the only thing about him that cannot be doubted Descartes defines thought(cogitatio) as what happens in me such that I ** immediately conscious of it, insofar as I ** conscious of it Thinking is thus every activity of a person of which he is immediately conscious
To further demonstrate the limitations of the senses, Descartes proceeds with what is known as the Wax Argument He considers a piece of wax; his senses inform him that it has certain characteristics, such as shape, texture, size, color, smell, and so forth When he brings the wax towards a flame, these characteristics change completely However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still a piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different Therefore, in order to properly grasp the nature of the wax, he cannot use the senses He must use his mind Descartes concludes:
And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is in my mind In this manner, Descartes proceeds to construct a system of knowledge, discarding perception as unreliable and instead admitting only deduction as a method In the third and fifth Meditation, he offers an ontological proof of a benevolent God (through both the ontological argument and trademark argument) Because God is benevolent, he can have some faith in the account of reality his senses provide him, for God has provided him with a working mind and sensory system and does not desire to deceive him From this supposition, however, he finally establishes the possibility of acquiring knowledge about the world based on deduction and perception In terms of epistemology therefore, he can be said to have contributed such ideas as a rigorous conception of foundationalism and the possibility that reason is the only reliable method of attaining knowledge
In Descartes' system, knowledge takes the form of ideas, and philosophical investigation is the contemplation of these ideas This concept would influence subsequent internalist movements as Descartes' epistemology requires that a connection made by conscious awareness will distinguish knowledge from falsity As a result of his Cartesian doubt, he viewed rational knowledge as being incapable of being destroyedand sought to construct an unshakable ground upon which all other knowledge can be based The first item of unshakable knowledge that Descartes argues for is the aforementioned cogito, or thinking thing
Descartes also wrote a response to skepticism about the existence of the external world He argues that sensory perceptions come to him involuntarily, and are not willed by him They are external to his senses, and according to Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of something outside of his mind, and thus, an external world Descartes goes on to show that the things in the external world are material by arguing that God would not deceive him as to the ideas that are being transmitted, and that God has given him the propensityto believe that such ideas are caused by material things
Descartes was also known for his work in producing the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies This can be most easily explored using the statement: This statement is a lieWhile it is most commonly referred to as a paradox, the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies states that at any given time a statement can be both true and false simultaneously due to its contradictory nature The statement is true in its fallacy Thus, Descartes developed the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies, which greatly influenced the thinking of the time Many wouldbe philosophers were trying to develop inexplicable statements of seeming fact, however, this laid rumors of such a proposition impossible Many philosophers believe that when Descartes formulated his Theory of Fallacies, he intended to be lying, which in and of itself embodies the theory
Dualism
Further information: Mindbody dichotomy and dualism
Descartes suggested that the body works like a machine, that it has the material properties of extension and motion, and that it follows the laws of physics The mind (or soul), on the other hand, was described as a nonmaterial entity that lacks extension and motion, and does not follow the laws of physics Descartes argued that only humans have minds, and that the mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland This form of dualism or duality proposes that the mind controls the body, but that the body can also influence the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act out of passion Most of the previous accounts of the relationship between mind and body had been unidirectional
Descartes suggested that the pineal gland is the seat of the soulfor several reasons First, the soul is unitary, and unlike many areas of the brain the pineal gland appeared to be unitary (though subsequent microscopic inspection has revealed it is formed of two hemispheres) Second, Descartes observed that the pineal gland was located near the ventricles He believed the animal spirits of the ventricles acted through the nerves to control the body, and that the pineal gland influenced this process Finally, Descartes incorrectly believed that only humans have pineal glands, just as, in his view, only humans have minds This led him to the belief that animals cannot feel pain, and Descartes' practice of vivisection (the dissection of live animals) became widely used throughout Europe until the Enlightenment Cartesian dualism set the agenda for philosophical discussion of the mindbody problem for many years after Descartes' death The question of how a nonmaterial mind could influence a material body, without invoking supernatural explanations, remains controversial to this day
Rene Descartes hayatı
imagesrenedescartesiningilizcehayatinibulurmusunuz5afb4878b55e5
Ren
Descartes Portrait after Frans Hals, 16481 Full name Ren
Descartes Birt 1 March 1596
La Haye en Touraine now Descartes, IndreetLoire, France Death 11 February 1650 (aged 53)
Stockholm, Sweden Schooltradition Cartesianism, Rationalism, Foundationalism Main interests Metaphysics, Epistemology, Science, Mathematics Notable ideas Cogito ergo sum, method of doubt, Cartesian coordinate system, Cartesian dualism, ontological argument for existence of God; regarded as a founder of Modern philosophy
Influenced byshow
Plato, Aristotle, Alhazen,Averroes, Avicenna, alGhazali, Anselm, St Augustine, Aquinas, Ockham, Suarez, Mersenne, Sextus Empiricus, Michel de Montaigne, Duns Scotus
Influenced
Spinoza, Hobbes, Arnauld, Malebranche, Pascal, Locke, Leibniz, More, Kant, Husserl, Brunschvicg, Žižek, Chomsky, Stanley, Dirck Rembrantsz van Nierop
Part of a series on
Ren
Descartes
Cartesianism Rationalism Foundationalism Doubt & Certainty Dream argument Cogito ergo sum Trademark argument Mindbody dichotomy Analytic geometry Coordinate system Cartesian circle Folium Rule of signs Cartesian er Balloonist theory Works The World Discourse on the Method La G
om
trie Meditations on First Philosophy Principles of Philosophy Passions of the Soul Notable People Christina of Sweden Baruch Spinoza Gottfried Leibniz This box: view talk edit
Ren
Descartes (French pronunciation: ʁəne dekaʁt), (31 March 1596 11 February 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius (latinized form),2 was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic He has been dubbed the Father of Modern Philosophy,and much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which continue to be studied closely to this day In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments Descartes' influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system allowing geometric shapes to be expressed in algebraic equations being named for him He is accredited as the father of analytical geometry Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution
Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the Early Modern version of what are now commonly called emotions, he goes so far as to assert that he will write on his topic as if no one had written on these matters before Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like St Augustine In his natural philosophy, he differs from the Schools on two major points: First, he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal to ends ine or natural in explaining natural phenomena In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of Gods act of creation
Descartes was a major figure in 17th century continental rationalism, later advocated by Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, Descartes founded analytic geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of calculus and analysis His most famous statement is: Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I **; OR I ** thinking, therefore I exist), found in §7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (Latin) and in part IV of Discourse on the Method (French)
Biography
Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), IndreetLoire, France When he was one year old, his mother Jeanne Brochard died of tuberculosis His father Joachim was a member in the provincial parliament At the age of eleven, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal HenryLeGrand at La Flèche After graduation, he studied at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalaur
at and License in law in 1616, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer3
I entirely abandoned the study of letters Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of erse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it (Descartes, Discourse on the Method) In the summer of 1618 he joined the army of Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic4 On 10 November 1618, while walking through Breda, Descartes met Isaac Beeckman, who sparked his interest in mathematics and the new physics, particularly the problem of the fall of heavy bodies While in the service of the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, Descartes was present at the Battle of the White Mountain outside Prague, in November 16205
In 1622 he returned to France, and during the next few years spent time in Paris and other parts of Europe He arrived in La Haye in 1623, selling all of his property, investing this remuneration in bonds which provided Descartes with a comfortable income for the rest of his life Descartes was present at the siege of La Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu in 1627
He returned to the Dutch Republic in 1628, where he lived until September 1649 In April 1629 he joined the University of Franeker and the next year, under the name Poitevin, he enrolled at the Leiden University to study mathematics with Jacob Golius and astronomy with Martin Hortensius6 In October 1630 he had a falling out with Beeckman, whom he accused of plagiarizing some of his ideas (though the situation was more likely the reverse) In Amsterdam, he had a relationship with a servant girl, Helène Jans, with whom he had a daughter, Francine, who was born in 1635 in Deventer, at which time Descartes taught at the Utrecht University Francine Descartes died in 1640 in Amersfoort
While in the Netherlands he changed his address frequently, living among other places in Dordrecht (1628), Franeker (1629), Amsterdam (162930), Leiden (1630), Amsterdam (16302), Deventer (16324), Amsterdam (16345), Utrecht (16356), Leiden (1636), Egmond (16368), Santpoort (16381640), Leiden (16401), Endegeest (a castle near Oegstgeest) (16413), and finally for an extended time in EgmondBinnen (16439)
Despite these frequent moves he wrote all his major work during his 20 plus years in the Netherlands, where he managed to revolutionize mathematics and philosophy In 1633, Galileo was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, and Descartes abandoned plans to publish Treatise on the World, his work of the previous four years Discourse on the Methodwas published in 1637 In it an early attempt at explaining reflexes mechanistically is made Descartes also lays out four rules of thought, meant to ensure that our knowledge rests upon a firm foundation
Descartes continued to publish works concerning both mathematics and philosophy for the rest of his life In 1643, Cartesian philosophy was condemned at the University of Utrecht, and Descartes began his long correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia In 1647, he was awarded a pension by the King of France Descartes was interviewed by Frans Burman at EgmondBinnen in 1648
Ren
Descartes died on 11 February 1650 in Stockholm, Sweden, where he had been invited as a teacher for Queen Christina of Sweden The cause of death was said to be pneumonia accustomed to working in bed until noon, he may have suffered a detrimental effect on his health due to Christina's demands for early morning study (the lack of sleep could have severely compromised his immune system) Others believe that Descartes may have contracted pneumonia as a result of nursing a French ambassador, Dejion A Nopeleen, ill with the aforementioned disease, back to health7
In 1663, the Pope placed his works on the Index of Prohibited Books
As a Roman Catholic in a Protestant nation, he was interred in a graveyard mainly used for unbaptized infants in Adolf Fredrikskyrkan in Stockholm Later, his remains were taken to France and buried in the church of SainteGenevièveduMont in Paris His memorial, erected in the 18th century, remains in the Swedish church
Philosophical work
Descartes is often regarded as the first modern thinker to provide a philosophical framework for the natural sciences as these began to develop In his Discourse on the Method he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt To achieve this, he employs a method called hyperbolicalmetaphysical doubt, sometimes also referred to as methodological skepticism: he rejects any ideas that can be doubted, and then reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge8
Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle: thought exists Thought cannot be separated from me, therefore, I exist (Discourse on the Method and Principles of Philosophy) Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum (English: I think, therefore I **) Therefore, Descartes concluded, if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the very fact that he doubted proved his existence The simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is skeptical of existence, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist9
Descartes concludes that he can be certain that he exists because he thinks But in what form? He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been proven unreliable So Descartes concludes that the only indubitable knowledge is that he is a thinking thing Thinking is his essence as it is the only thing about him that cannot be doubted Descartes defines thought(cogitatio) as what happens in me such that I ** immediately conscious of it, insofar as I ** conscious of it Thinking is thus every activity of a person of which he is immediately conscious
To further demonstrate the limitations of the senses, Descartes proceeds with what is known as the Wax Argument He considers a piece of wax; his senses inform him that it has certain characteristics, such as shape, texture, size, color, smell, and so forth When he brings the wax towards a flame, these characteristics change completely However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still a piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different Therefore, in order to properly grasp the nature of the wax, he cannot use the senses He must use his mind Descartes concludes:
And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is in my mind In this manner, Descartes proceeds to construct a system of knowledge, discarding perception as unreliable and instead admitting only deduction as a method In the third and fifth Meditation, he offers an ontological proof of a benevolent God (through both the ontological argument and trademark argument) Because God is benevolent, he can have some faith in the account of reality his senses provide him, for God has provided him with a working mind and sensory system and does not desire to deceive him From this supposition, however, he finally establishes the possibility of acquiring knowledge about the world based on deduction and perception In terms of epistemology therefore, he can be said to have contributed such ideas as a rigorous conception of foundationalism and the possibility that reason is the only reliable method of attaining knowledge
In Descartes' system, knowledge takes the form of ideas, and philosophical investigation is the contemplation of these ideas This concept would influence subsequent internalist movements as Descartes' epistemology requires that a connection made by conscious awareness will distinguish knowledge from falsity As a result of his Cartesian doubt, he viewed rational knowledge as being incapable of being destroyedand sought to construct an unshakable ground upon which all other knowledge can be based The first item of unshakable knowledge that Descartes argues for is the aforementioned cogito, or thinking thing
Descartes also wrote a response to skepticism about the existence of the external world He argues that sensory perceptions come to him involuntarily, and are not willed by him They are external to his senses, and according to Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of something outside of his mind, and thus, an external world Descartes goes on to show that the things in the external world are material by arguing that God would not deceive him as to the ideas that are being transmitted, and that God has given him the propensityto believe that such ideas are caused by material things
Descartes was also known for his work in producing the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies This can be most easily explored using the statement: This statement is a lieWhile it is most commonly referred to as a paradox, the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies states that at any given time a statement can be both true and false simultaneously due to its contradictory nature The statement is true in its fallacy Thus, Descartes developed the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies, which greatly influenced the thinking of the time Many wouldbe philosophers were trying to develop inexplicable statements of seeming fact, however, this laid rumors of such a proposition impossible Many philosophers believe that when Descartes formulated his Theory of Fallacies, he intended to be lying, which in and of itself embodies the theory
Dualism
Further information: Mindbody dichotomy and dualism
Descartes suggested that the body works like a machine, that it has the material properties of extension and motion, and that it follows the laws of physics The mind (or soul), on the other hand, was described as a nonmaterial entity that lacks extension and motion, and does not follow the laws of physics Descartes argued that only humans have minds, and that the mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland This form of dualism or duality proposes that the mind controls the body, but that the body can also influence the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act out of passion Most of the previous accounts of the relationship between mind and body had been unidirectional
Descartes suggested that the pineal gland is the seat of the soulfor several reasons First, the soul is unitary, and unlike many areas of the brain the pineal gland appeared to be unitary (though subsequent microscopic inspection has revealed it is formed of two hemispheres) Second, Descartes observed that the pineal gland was located near the ventricles He believed the animal spirits of the ventricles acted through the nerves to control the body, and that the pineal gland influenced this process Finally, Descartes incorrectly believed that only humans have pineal glands, just as, in his view, only humans have minds This led him to the belief that animals cannot feel pain, and Descartes' practice of vivisection (the dissection of live animals) became widely used throughout Europe until the Enlightenment Cartesian dualism set the agenda for philosophical discussion of the mindbody problem for many years after Descartes' death The question of how a nonmaterial mind could influence a material body, without invoking supernatural explanations, remains controversial to this day