The Cambridge Companion to Descartes
8 Cartesian dualism
Theology, metaphysics, and science
Throughout his life Descartes firmly believed that the mind, or soul, of man (he made no distinction between the two terms) was essentially nonphysical. In his earliest major work, the Regulae (c.1628), he declared that “the power through which we know things in the strict sense is purely spiritual, and is no less distinct from the whole body than blood is distinct from bone, or the hand from the eye” (AT X 415: CSM I 42). In his last work, the Passions de l'dme (1649), he observed that the soul, although 'joined' or 'united' to the “whole assemblage of bodily organs” during life, is “of such a nature that it has no relation to extension, or to the dimensions or other properties of the matter of which the body is composed” (AT XI 351: CSM I 339). And between these chronological extremes we have the central claim of the Meditations (1641): there is a 'real' [realis) distinction between the mind and body, - in other words, the mind is a distinct and independent 'thing' (res). The thinking thing that is 'me' is “really distinct from the body and can exist without it” (AT VII 78: CSM II 54).
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Bookmark this entryDigital Object Identifier: 10.1017/CCOL0521366232.009
How to cite (Modern Language Association style):
Cottingham, John. "Cartesian dualism." The Cambridge Companion to Descartes. Ed. John Cottingham. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Cambridge Collections Online. Cambridge University Press. 09 February 2010 DOI:10.1017/CCOL0521366232.009