Question : Why does Spinoza think that god alone is absolutely real? Explain.

(2010)

Answer : The fundamental thing to keep in mind when thinking about Spinoza is one simple, striking, and paradoxical proposition: God is the only thing that exists. The way that Spinoza argues it is that there is only one substance, and then that there is only one individual of that substance. In the tradition of Anselm and Descartes, God is a “Necessary Being,” who cannot possibly nonexistent. Existence is part of his essence, and he cannot be without it. But existence is not the entire essence of God. Instead, the one substance is characterized by an infinite number of attributes. Besides existence, we are only aware of two of these:thought and extension. Thus, where Descartes had seen thought as the unique essence of the substance soul, and extension as the unique essence of the substance matter, Spinoza abolished this dualism. Thought and extension are just two, out of an infinite number of, facets of “Being”. Spinoza’s God thinks, and also is or does many other things that are beyond our reckoning and comprehension. The structure of substance, attribute, and mode is the foundation of Spinoza’s metaphysics. In fact Descartes has claimed that there are tow categories of substance. He declares thought and extension as substance but dependent on the God. But this contradicts with the definition of the substance as the substance is the only real and absolute entity and that kind of entity has to be only one. If there are tow substances then the concept of substance no longer exists. Hence Spinoza declared that there can be only one substance and that has to be real and absolute and thought and extension are its attributes.

Question : What is the basic difference between Leibniz & Kant on the concepts of space & time?

(2010)

Answer : Leibniz held a relational theory of space and time. Without things there would be no space, and without events there would be no time. Space and time are not containers into which things and events may be inserted but which could have remained empty. An even more ambitious denial of the substantiality of space and time makes space the “order of co-existents” and time the “order of successions”, or a “well-founded phenomenon.” Despite his admiration for Newton, Kant seems not to have believed in absolute space or absolute motion. He further accepted Leibniz’s argument “without the things placed in it, one point of space does not absolutely differ in any respect whatsoever from another point of space” According to Leibniz, the supposition that space and time were real implied that a universe could have been placed to the east or west of its present location, or created before or after the actual moment of its creation. Yet no meaning could be attached to such a supposition. To Leibniz’s claim that space was founded on the order of relations of monads, Kant could however attach no distinct sense. It seemed to him to imply that the truths of mathematics depended on the existence of a world of things and events, which was absurd. Kant had noticed that things appear to interact causally and to determine one another’s behavior. This led him to insist that space was “a certain order in the community of substances, and time the dynamic sequence of their states. However, the composition of bodies from monads as basic elements presupposes their juxtaposition in space. If we confusedly perceive monads as physical objects in space, what would it be like to apprehend the monads distinctly as not in space but as the foundation of space?

Kant’s conviction that the existence of incongruent counterparts proved that “space in general does not belong to the properties or relations of things in themselves” is not easy to understand, but his basic claim is that space does not depend on relations between things in space, but rather on relations between perceivers and things. On the Basis of the Difference of Regions in Space introduced the problem, taken up in the Prolegomena of 1781 and the Metaphysical Foundations. A possible universe-located-two-miles-further-east-than-it-is might be, just as Leibniz claimed, no different from a possible universe-located-two-miles-further-west-than-it-is. Yet a left-twining and a right-twining spiral, Kant points out in his essay, are really different. They correspond perfectly without being identical. Leibniz (though he would of course have denied that even two right handed gloves can be identical), according to Kant, could not account for this specific difference, since a right-handed and a left-handed glove are the same according to the “discursive mode of cognition.

Question : Interactionism in the philosophical context.

(2009)

Answer : Body-mind dualism has always been a problem in western philosophy. Descartes in his theory of interactionism provides solution to it. Descartes held that the brain (along with the rest of the body) was purely mechanistic in its principle of operation. This is true when body is considered without soul. Descartes is of view that the sense perceptions and physical passions of men are dependent upon the body, but awareness of them lies in the soul. The important thing then is to inquire how the soul becomes aware (i.e., conscious and self-conscious) and how it succeeds in acting upon the body. Its awareness is due to the action of the body upon it, but how does it in turn act upon the body when it exercises will?

The point of interaction, according to Descartes, is at the site of the pineal gland, the only place he thought that is not duplicate as all other brain structures were thought to be. The soul is not, however, to be viewed as somehow shut up in the pineal gland. The gland is merely the point of interaction, not the seat of the soul in any fuller sense. The body is extended matter: the soul is unextended spirit. When, however, the extended is acted upon by the unextended, some definite point of interaction is required and it is to be found in the pineal gland. Yet the soul is united to all parts of the body conjointly. The whole body is the soul’s proper housing so long as the body remains intact. When a member of the body—an arm or a leg, for example—is cut off, there is no loss of part of the soul as a consequence because the soul is unitary and indivisible. It then occupies what is left of the body. So without attempting to resolve all the problems, he simply stated that there is a dualism of mind and body, and their interaction is clearly real. The brain is the major locus for the mind or consciousness of the soul, yet mind or consciousness is distributed throughout the whole body.

The point of interaction between the two is the pineal gland. Descartes lent his authority to the long-held view that the mind is associated in a particular way with the brain, but he made mind and brain separate entities, dependent upon each other only as a fountain pen and ink are interdependent. Most of the important thinkers who followed Descartes rejected interactionism. It was not a testable hypothesis. Above all, it introduced the supernatural into the picture and thus removed the concept from the scientific laboratory into the theological seminary. Critics of his ideas objected that if soul and body were substances of entirely different natures, interaction between them was in fact impossible. Thus Descartes protested against, but he never satisfied his critics.

Question : ‘’Descartes’’ mind body dualism and Strawson’s response to it.

(2009)

Answer : It is widely assumed that Descartes’ philosophy of mind is organized around three major commitments. The first is to substance dualism. The second is to individualism about mental content. The third is to a particularly strong form of the doctrine of privileged first-person access. Each of these commitments has been questioned by contemporary philosophers of mind. Substance dualism is generally regarded as a non-starter, individualism has come under attack from a number of different quarters, and the doctrine of privileged access has been watered down or rejected. Yet, at least as far as questions about mental content and privileged access are concerned, contemporary discussions still addressed what they represent as Descartes’ views.

More often than not crude parodies of these views end up as the focus of discussion but more careful critics are usually prepared to recognize that Descartes’ philosophy of mind is more subtle and nuanced than the parodies might lead one to suppose. Responses to substance dualism, the view that mind and body are distinct substances one of which (body) is material and the other (mind) immaterial, fall into two main categories. There are those which question its coherence and those which reject it on empirical grounds. It remains to be seen which form of objection is more appropriate but it is worth noting that some critics of substance dualism have been prepared to endorse another kind of dualism, a dualism of properties. According to this ‘dual aspect’ version of dualism mental properties are neither identical with nor reducible to physical properties, even though both mental and physical properties are properties or aspects of a single substance. This wouldn’t have satisfied Descartes but it may well be the best that can be done for dualism in the philosophy of mind.

P. F. Strawson writes that one of the marks of a really great philosopher is to have made a really great mistake. He goes on to argue that Cartesian dualism is one such mistake, its greatness consisting in the fact that it gives a ‘persuasive and lastingly influential form to one of those fundamental misconceptions to which the human intellect is prone when it concerns itself with the ultimate categories of thought’. But why is Cartesian dualism a mistake? According to Strawson and many others the fundamental problem is that this form of dualism is not just false but incoherent. For the notion of an immaterial Cartesian mind or soul to make sense it must be possible for specify criteria of singularity and identity for souls. That is to say, ‘we must know the difference between one such item and two’ and ‘we must know how to identify the same item at different times’. Since bodies are in space as well as time we can account for their singularity and identity in spatio-temporal terms. For example, we can appeal to the principle that two bodies can’t occupy exactly the same region of space at the same time. But the fact that immaterial souls are supposed to be non-spatial leaves us without any conception of what their singularity and identity consists in. That is why, according to the present line of thinking, Cartesian dualism is conceptually incoherent. One response to this objection would be to argue that it is possible to count and re-identify souls by reference to the human beings or human bodies to which they are attached. Where there is one human being we assume that there is, or was, one soul attached to it and that sameness of human being implies sameness of soul. Yet it is not clear how this assumption can be justified.

Question : Compare the views of Leibniz and Hume on the concept of substance.

(2009)

Answer : Many of the concepts analyzed by philosophers have their origin in ordinary or at least extra-philosophical language. Perception, knowledge, causation, and mind would be examples of this. But the concept of substance is essentially a philosophical term of art. Its uses in ordinary language tend to derive, often in a rather distorted way, from the philosophical senses. There could be said to be two rather different ways of characterizing the philosophical concept of substance. The first is the more generic. The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’.

According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things which, according to that system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality. In David Hume’s system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato’s substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms. In this sense of ‘substance’ any realist philosophical system acknowledges the existence of substances. Probably the only theories which do not would be those forms of logical positivism or pragmatism which treat ontology as a matter of convention. According to such theories, there are no real facts about what is ontologically basic, and so nothing is objectively substance. The second use of the concept is more specific. According to this, substances are a particular kind of basic entity, and some philosophical theories acknowledge them and others do not. On this use, Hume’s impressions and ideas are not substances, even though they are the building blocks of what constitutes ‘being’ for his world.

According to this usage, it is a live issue whether the fundamental entities are substances or something else, such as events, or properties located at space-times. This conception of substance derives from the intuitive notion of individual thing or object, which contrast mainly with properties and events. The issue is how we are to understand the notion of an object, and whether, in the light of the correct understanding, it remains a basic notion, or one that must be characterized in more fundamental terms. Whether, for example, an object can be thought of as nothing more than a bundle of properties, or a series of events. When we study the philosophical view of Leibniz, it is important to understand ‘the concept of substance’ which is organized under the name of ‘Monad’. His basic problem about the First Philosophy, or Being as Being, was ‘what is the principle of realistic individual existences ?’ and he came to think this substance called Monad as the most basic being.

Leibniz, who had learned ‘the substantial form’ through Scholasticism from Aristotle, considered ‘substance as an individual’ or ‘individual substance’ as the most basic being and ‘force’ as its nature. The substance is, first, simple and indivisible, which has neither extension nor shape as an individual or one (a united ‘point’ of ‘point of view’). Second, it has the inner character and activity (symbol and desire) which differentiates a Monad from the other. Therefore the change of the state of the substance depends not on other Monads but on the symbol and its change of a Monad itself, because Monad is a perfect and self-satisfying substance, a ‘non-bodily automat’. Moreover there are differences among Monads according to its own perfection (clearness of symbol). Each Monad is bound for clearer symbol, spontaneously aiming at self-accomplishment, but at the same time each is well adapted to all other Monads. In Leibniz’s ontology, real things are substances. A substance is a being which is capable of acting on its own. Each substance has any number of qualities. God is the one and only infinite substance, and through the act of creation, God brought into existence infinitely many other substances. Since they do not interact with one another, the changes in each monad in the world must be harmonious with those in each other monad in the world.

This is possible only if at the creation, the principle of change in each monad is properly calibrated, a task seen to by God. According to Hume our belief in substance is the result of a mistake or illusion. Thus Hume’s treatment of substance is like his treatment of causation, in that he sees both as the projection onto the world of a tendency of our minds either to pass from one thing to another or to associate them in some way. He either doubts that there are such things as substance or causation (skepticism) or even positively denies that there are (nihilism).

Question : Explain the nature of substance and its relation to attributes according to Spinoza.

(2006)

Answer : Spinoza is undoubtedly one of the greatest rationalist philosophers of the West. He developed the Cartesian theory of Substance into a full-fledged system of symmetry and perfection. To Spinoza there is only one Substance, God, and this he accepted in agreement with one of the aspects of the philosophy of Descartes. All things in the world follow for Spinoza from the supreme Substance, not as evolutes of it in the process of time, but in the manner of corollaries of a geometrical theorem. The universe is necessarily deduced from the one Substance as we deduce mathematical truths in our calculations and reasoning. Space, time and objects are all modes of the one Substance. Spinoza does not give time a separate reality; to him there is only eternity and time is only a mode of thought. Anticipating Hegel, as it were, he argues that the conclusions arrived at logically are not different from what exist really. He would agree with Hegel that logic and metaphysics are essentially one. To Spinoza thought and reality lose their distinctness and become one.

Spinoza conceives the universe as an interrelated system in which every element is accommodated as an indispensable and necessary feature in the exact place assigned to it. The universe is a strictly determined whole and becomes rigid with the absence of any purpose or final aim directing it beyond itself. Spinoza makes thought and extension, the properties of the mind and matter in the philosophy of Descartes, the two attributes of the absolute Substance, and thus a greater consistency and method is seen in the system of Spinoza than in that of Descartes.

Substance is God, and, being independent, it is also infinite. All finite things are dependent on some other things. The Substance is its own determination, nothing else can determine it; it is not dependent on anything else. The great motto of Spinoza is that all determination is negation, and so the Substance is free from the determination of individuality or discreteness. God, being infinite, cannot be possessed of the psychological organs or be endowed with the volitional and intellectual functions known to man, which are valid only on a dualistic basis. Spinoza differs from Descartes in his view that God and the world are not two distinct principles. He merges God in the world and the world in God. Thus we get pantheism where God is the world and the world is God. Students of Spinoza have, however, endeavoured to discover a transcendent aspect of the Supreme Substance and save him from the charge of pantheism.

Thought and extension are considered by Spinoza to be the two outstanding attributes of the supreme Substance, God. God has infinite attributes, but out of these only thought and extension is intelligible to man. These two attributes are everywhere, for they are inherent in the Substance which is infinite. There is no part of the Substance which is not defined by thought and extension. Spinoza is inclined to make each of these attributes infinite in nature, though on account of his endowing God with infinite attributes he is hesitant to make them absolutely infinite. The theory of parallelism which Descartes propounded finds a place again in Spinoza’s system, though in a modified way. Spinoza holds that thought and extension cannot have interaction between them, for they are the inward and outward expression of one and the same process.

One and the same entity appears as mind within and matter without. The order and connection of mental phenomena is not dissimilar to that of physical phenomena. The two laws run parallel to each other in their method and working. Mind and body are consequently considered to be modes of one process, having one law, and, thus, they cannot exercise influence on each other in any way. Thought and extension have equal reality and are subsistent in the infinite Substance and proceed from it as necessarily as mathematical deductions. There is no substance independent of God, Who is the supreme Substance and whose attributes are thought and extension. In short, God, to Spinoza, is a thinking and extended being, which would mean that God is possessed of mind and body, though by God’s mind and body Spinoza does not mean the mind and the body with which we are familiar, but the mental processes scattered over all space and time and the physical processes that constitute the stuff of the world. While Spinoza dismisses the dualism of substances admitted by Descartes, he accepts the same by making them attributes of the supreme Substance. The same difficulty remains, though the terminology in which it is expressed is different, and the rigour of the dualism is attempted to be overcome by its association with the One Substance.

Spinoza holds that Nature is in reality the one universal Substance, and its appearance as consisting of diversified phenomena is the result of our imperfect ways of looking at it. Everything in the world is an attribute or a mode of the eternal Substance, and its existence is the reality of all things. Spinoza goes beyond Descartes when he thinks that God and mind, too, are determined by the laws of mechanics. Spinoza makes strict determinism prevail in Nature. Purpose and design are to him delusions transferred to the objective universe by the limited vision of individuals. The will of God and the laws of Nature are not two different things, but mean the same thing.

The laws are unchangeable and mechanical. There is a distinction, however, made by Spinoza between his conception of the supreme Substance and the ordinary view of substantiality or concreteness which many are likely to hold in regard to substance. By Substance Spinoza means essence or ultimate existence and not corporeal matter. He identifies his Substance, or God, which is the cause or origin, with what he terms Natura Naturans, as distinguished from the visible physical universe of diversified bodies, which is merely an effect and which he calls Natura Naturata. Spinoza’s God has no will or intellect of the ordinary kind. He identifies God’s Will with the totality of all causes and laws and God’s Intellect with the totality of all minds in the universe. Thus, it appears that his God is in all ways the sum-total of individualities.

In the philosophy of the Vedanta, time is not a mode of any individual’s mind but is necessarily valid to all minds. It is a part of ishvara-srishti and it can be called a mode of thought only when this thought is identified with the cosmic Will of Ishvara. All individuals are in time and no one creates time. Space and time are the necessary presuppositions of all perceptions. Even the ideas that arise in the mind of man are determined by the properties of space and time. Sensation, thinking, understanding and reasoning are all dependent on the universal properties of space and time. It is true that there is only eternity, and time is a relative appearance, but it has to be added here that this appearance is not the product of any individual’s thought, but is the determining factor of all individual thoughts. Time belongs to the cosmos and hence it is an extra mental reality. The Vedanta would agree with Spinoza that time is a mode of thought only when this thought is identified with God’s thought.

Spinoza’s view that the universe is determined and rigid without any purpose or design directing it is not fully acceptable. The Vedanta makes a distinction between the universe as such which it calls ishvara-srishti, and the universe in relation to the individual which guides the processes of a secondary universe, which it calls jiva-srishti. When it takes into consideration the universe as such, the Vedanta would agree with Spinoza that it is determined and has no purpose beyond itself. For, the universe as it is in itself, independent of individual perceivers, is the body of Ishvara, and it is its own end. It has no other aim which may determine or direct its processes. God’s Will is an eternal law, without a beginning and an end, and, as the universe as such is the very body of Ishvara, it must be eternally determined in its workings, allowing in no change, modification or amendment of any kind. Cosmic determination, relentless and immutable, is the law of the universe of Ishvara.

But in the relative universe, which is what is observed by the individuals, there is purpose, design, aim, an ultimate goal. We cannot deny the fact of change in this universe. Change is movement and movement cannot be merely a chaotic changing of positions without a directing principle behind it. All change is movement towards an aim, a fulfillment in a higher principle, which is more inclusive and which transcends all the lower ones. The realisation of the highest perfection in the consciousness of what does not admit of any further transcendence is the ultimate directing principle of all movements seen in the world and the individuals. In other words, God-realisation or Self-realisation is the goal of life. Thus, there is a purpose in the workings of Nature, of which the different individuals are parts and which constitutes their environment with which they are inextricably bound.

Question : Discuss Descartes dualism.

(2006)

Answer : Rene Descartes is widely regarded as the originator of modern philosophy. He also laid the foundations for modern science. But despite his innovatory ideas about the physical world, he never doubted that conscious minds exist on a separate, non-physical level. Descartes was a dualist. He thought that there are two separate but interacting realms, the mental and the material. Descartes’ view of the material world was itself very austere, quite different from previous views, and indeed from much subsequent thinking. He assumed that the material realm contains nothing but matter in motion, and that all action is by contact. Colours, sounds, smell and so on, are not really in the objects themselves, but are impressions produced in us by the action of material particles on our sense organs.

Descartes did not take reality to be exhausted by matter in motion. In partial compensation for the austerity of his material world, Descartes also postulated a separate realm of mind. This other realm was populated by thoughts and emotions, pleasures and pains. These conscious elements had none of the spatial characteristics of matter - namely, size, shape and motion. Descartes took it that mind and matter could interact, despite their radical differences. Material causes can produce mental effects, as when you sit on a pin and so feel mental pain. And mental causes can produce material effects, as when your mental pain causes you to jump up again. Descartes thought that mind and matter interact in the pineal gland. This is a pea-sized organ in the human brain, situated beneath the corpus callosum, whose function is still not fully understood. It is also the only symmetrical organ in the brain without a left and right counterpart. His doctrine related to mind-body dualism is known as Interactionism.

But the Descartes’ conclusion is not flawless. The crux of the difficulty lies in the claim that the respective natures of mind and body are completely different and, in some way, opposite from one another. On this account, the mind is an entirely immaterial thing without any extension in it whatsoever; and, conversely, the body is an entirely material thing without any thinking in it at all. This also means that each substance can have only its kind of modes. For instance, the mind can only have modes of understanding, will and, in some sense, sensation, while the body can only have modes of size, shape, motion, and quantity. But bodies cannot have modes of understanding or willing, since these are not ways of being extended; and minds cannot have modes of shape or motion, since these are not ways of thinking.

The difficulty arises when it is noticed that sometimes the will moves the body, for example, the intention to ask a question in class causes the raising of your arm, and certain motions in the body cause the mind to have sensations. But how can two substances with completely different natures causally interact? Pierre Gassendi in the Fifth Objections and Princess Elizabeth in her correspondence with Descartes both noted this problem and explained it in terms of contact and motion. The main thrust of their concern is that the mind must be able to come into contact with the body in order to cause it to move. Yet contact must occur between two or more surfaces, and, since having a surface is a mode of extension, minds cannot have surfaces. Therefore, minds cannot come into contact with bodies in order to cause some of their limbs to move. Furthermore, although Gassendi and Elizabeth were concerned with how a mental substance can cause motion in a bodily substance, a similar problem can be found going the other way: how can the motion of particles in the eye, for example, traveling through the optic nerve to the brain cause visual sensations in the mind, if no contact or transfer of motion is possible between the two?

This could be a serious problem for Descartes, because the actual existence of modes of sensation and voluntary bodily movement indicates that mind and body do causally interact. But the completely different natures of mind and body seem to preclude the possibility of this interaction. Hence, if this problem cannot be resolved, then it could be used to imply that mind and body are not completely different but they must have something in common in order to facilitate this interaction. Given Elizabeth’s and Gassendi’s concerns, it would suggest that the mind is an extended thing capable of having a surface and motion. Therefore, Descartes could not really come to a clear and distinct understanding of mind and body independently of one another, because the nature of the mind would have to include extension or body in it. Descartes, however, never seemed very concerned about this problem. The reason for this lack of concern is his conviction expressed to both Gassendi and Elizabeth that the problem rests upon a misunderstanding about the union between mind and body.

Descartes’ close assimilation of body and space, his rejection of the vacuum, and some textual issues have lead many to infer an asymmetry in his metaphysics of thinking and extended things. This asymmetry is found in the claim that particular minds are substances for Descartes but not particular bodies. Rather, these considerations indicate to some that only the whole, physical universe is a substance, while particular bodies, for example, the wine bottle, are modes of that substance. Though the textual issues are many, the main philosophical problem stems from the rejection of the vacuum. The argument goes like this: particular bodies are not really distinct substances, because two or more particular bodies cannot be clearly and distinctly understood with an empty space between them; that is, they are not separable from each other, even by the power of God.

Hence, particular bodies are not substances, and therefore they must be modes. However, this line of reasoning is a result of misunderstanding the criterion for a real distinction. Instead of trying to understand two bodies with an empty space between them, one body should be understood all by itself so that God could have created a world with that body, for example, the wine bottle, as its only existent. Hence, since it requires only God’s concurrence to exist, it is a substance that is really distinct from all other thinking and extended substances. Although difficulties also arise for this argument from Descartes’ account of bodily surfaces as a mode shared between bodies.

Question : Interactionism.

(2005)

Answer : Interactionism is the view put forth by Descartes to explain the body mind relationship. According to this theory mental states, such as beliefs and desires, causally interact with physical states. This is a position which is very appealing to common-sense intuitions, notwithstanding the fact that it is very difficult to establish its validity or correctness by way of argumentation or empirical proof. It seems to appeal to common-sense because we are surrounded by such everyday occurrences as a child’s touching a hot stove (physical event) which causes him to feel pain (mental event) and then yell and scream (physical event) which causes his parents to experience a sensation of fear and protectiveness (mental event) and so on.^[ Varieties of dualism according to which an immaterial mind causally affects the material body and vice-versa have come under strenuous attack from different quarters, especially in the 20th century. Critics of dualism have often asked how something totally immaterial can affect something totally material. This is the basic problem of causal interaction. It can be broken down into three parts.

First, it is not clear where the interaction would take place. For example, burning one’s fingers cause pain. Apparently there is some chain of events, leading from the burning of skin, to the stimulation of nerve endings, to something happening in the peripheral nerves of one’s body that lead to one’s brain, to something happening in a particular part of one’s brain, and finally resulting in the sensation of pain. But pain is not supposed to be spatially localizable. It might be responded that the pain “takes place in the brain.” But, intuitively, pains are not located anywhere.

This may not be a devastating criticism. However, there is a second problem about the interaction. Namely, the question of how the interaction takes place. It may be supposed that this is solely a matter for science to resolve — scientists will eventually discover the connection between mental and physical events. But philosophers also have something to say about the matter, since the very notion of a mechanism which explains the connection between the mental and the physical would be very strange, at best. For example, compare such a mechanism to a mechanism that is well understood. Take a very simple causal relation, such as when a cue ball strikes an eight ball and causes it to go into the pocket. What happens in this case is that the cue ball has a certain amount of momentum as its mass moves across the pool table with a certain velocity, and then that momentum is transferred to the eight ball, which then heads toward the pocket. Compare this to the situation in the brain, where one wants to say that a decision causes some neurons to fire and thus causes a body to move across the room. The intention to “cross the room now” is a mental event and, as such, it does not have physical properties such as force. If it has no force, then it would seem that it could not possibly cause any neuron to fire. The puzzle is to explain how something without any physical properties could have any physical effects at all. Some philosophers have replied to this, as follows: there is indeed a mystery about how the interaction between mental and physical events can occur. But the fact that there is a mystery does not mean that there is no interaction. Plainly there is an interaction and plainly the interaction is between two totally different sorts of events. The problem with this response is that it does not seem to answer the full power of the objection. The objection can be formulated more precisely.

When a person decides to walk across a room, it is generally understood that the decision to do so, a mental event, immediately causes a group of neurons in that person’s brain to fire, a physical event, which ultimately results in his walking across the room. The problem is that if we have something totally nonphysical causing a bunch of neurons to fire, then there is no physical event which causes the firing. That means that some physical energy seems to have appeared out of thin air. Even if one maintains that the decision has some sort of mental energy, and that the decision causes the firing, there is still no explanation of where the physical energy for the firing came from. It just seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

Question : Spinoza’s conception of the ultimate substance.

(2005)

Answer : To Spinoza there is only one Substance, God, and this he accepted in agreement with one of the aspects of the philosophy of Descartes. All things in the world follow for Spinoza from the supreme Substance, not as evolutes of it in the process of time, but in the manner of corollaries of a geometrical theorem. The universe is necessarily deduced from the one Substance as we deduce mathematical truths in our calculations and reasoning. Space, time and objects are all modes of the one Substance. Spinoza does not give time a separate reality; to him there is only eternity and time is only a mode of thought. Anticipating Hegel, as it were, he argues that the conclusions arrived at logically are not different from what exist really. He would agree with Hegel that logic and metaphysics are essentially one. To Spinoza thought and reality lose their distinctness and become one. Spinoza conceives the universe as an interrelated system in which every element is accommodated as an indispensable and necessary feature in the exact place assigned to it. The universe is a strictly determined whole and becomes rigid with the absence of any purpose or final aim directing it beyond itself. Spinoza makes thought and extension, the properties of the mind and matter in the philosophy of Descartes, the two attributes of the absolute Substance, and thus a greater consistency and method is seen in the system of Spinoza than in that of Descartes. Substance is God, and, being independent, it is also infinite. All finite things are dependent on some other things. The Substance is its own determination, nothing else can determine it; it is not dependent on anything else.

The great motto of Spinoza is that all determination is negation, and so the Substance is free from the determination of individuality or discreteness. Substance is God, and, being independent, it is also infinite. All finite things are dependent on some other things. The Substance is its own determination, nothing else can determine it; it is not dependent on anything else. The great motto of Spinoza is that all determination is negation, and so the Substance is free from the determination of individuality or discreteness. God, being infinite, cannot be possessed of the psychological organs or be endowed with the volitional and intellectual functions known to man, which are valid only on a dualistic basis. Spinoza differs from Descartes in his view that God and the world are not two distinct principles. He merges God in the world and the world in God. Thus we get pantheism where God is the world and the world is God. Students of Spinoza have, however, endeavoured to discover a transcendent aspect of the Supreme Substance and save him from the charge of pantheism.

Question : “I think therefore I am”.

(2004)

Answer : Descartes is often regarded as the first modern thinker to provide a philosophical framework for his thoughts as these began to develop. In his works he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt. He says that I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, and no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No. If I convinced myself of something (or thought anything at all) then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. To achieve this, he employs a method called hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt.

He rejects any idea that can be doubted, and then reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge. Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle: thought exists. Thought cannot be separated from me, therefore, I exist. Most famously, this is known as “I think, therefore I am”. 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 someone is wondering whether or not he exists, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist. 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” as “what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it”. Thinking is thus every activity of a person of which he is immediately aware. 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.

According to many of Descartes’ specialists, the goal of Descartes in establishing this first truth is to demonstrate the capacity of his criterion — the immediate clarity and distinctiveness of self-evident propositions — to establish true and justified propositions despite having adopted a method of generalized doubt. As a consequence of this demonstration, Descartes considers science and mathematics to be justified to the extent that their proposals are established on a similar immediate clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence that present itself to the mind. The originality of Descartes’ thinking, therefore, is not so much in expressing the cogito — a feat accomplished by other predecessors, as we have seen — but on using the cogito as demonstrating the most fundamental epistemological principle, that science and mathematics are justified by relying on clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence

Question : State and critically examine Spinoza’s doctrine of the identity of substance God and Nature.

(2002)

Answer : Spinoza holds that Nature is in reality the one universal Substance, and its appearance as consisting of diversified phenomena is the result of our imperfect ways of looking at it. Everything in the world is an attribute or a mode of the eternal Substance, and its existence is the reality of all things. Spinoza goes beyond Descartes when he thinks that God and mind, too, are determined by the laws of mechanics. Spinoza makes strict determinism prevail in Nature. Purpose and design are to him delusions transferred to the objective universe by the limited vision of individuals.

The will of God and the laws of Nature are not two different things, but mean the same thing. The laws are unchangeable and mechanical. There is a distinction, however, made by Spinoza between his conception of the supreme Substance and the ordinary view of substantiality or concreteness which many are likely to hold in regard to substance. By Substance Spinoza means essence or ultimate existence and not corporeal matter. He identifies his Substance, or God, which is the cause or origin, with what he terms Natura Naturans, as distinguished from the visible physical universe of diversified bodies, which is merely an effect and which he calls Natura Naturata. Spinoza’s God has no will or intellect of the ordinary kind. He identifies God’s Will with the totality of all causes and laws and God’s Intellect with the totality of all minds in the universe. Thus, it appears that his God is in all ways the sum-total of individualities.

Substance is God, and, being independent, it is also infinite. All finite things are dependent on some other things. The Substance is its own determination, nothing else can determine it; it is not dependent on anything else. All things in the world follow for Spinoza from the supreme Substance, not as evolutes of it in the process of time, but in the manner of corollaries of a geometrical theorem. The universe is necessarily deduced from the one Substance as we deduce mathematical truths in our calculations and reasoning. Space, time and objects are all modes of the one Substance. Spinoza does not give time a separate reality; to him there is only eternity and time is only a mode of thought. Spinoza’s view that the universe is determined and rigid without any purpose or design directing it is not fully acceptable.

The Vedanta makes a distinction between the universes as such which it calls ishvara-srishti, and the universe in relation to the individual which guides the processes of a secondary universe, which it calls jiva-srishti. When it takes into consideration the universe as such, the Vedanta would agree with Spinoza that it is determined and has no purpose beyond itself. For, the universe as it is in itself, independent of individual perceivers, is the body of Ishvara, and it is its own end. It has no other aim which may determine or direct its processes. God’s Will is an eternal law, without a beginning and an end, and, as the universe as such is the very body of Ishvara, it must be eternally determined in its workings, allowing in no change, modification or amendment of any kind. Cosmic determination, relentless and immutable, is the law of the universe of Ishvara. But in the relative universe, which is what is observed by the individuals, there is purpose, design, aim, an ultimate goal. We cannot deny the fact of change in this universe. Change is movement and movement cannot be merely a chaotic changing of positions without a directing principle behind it. All change is movement towards an aim, a fulfillment in a higher principle, which is more inclusive and which transcends all the lower ones. The realisation of the highest perfection in the consciousness of what does not admit of any further transcendence is the ultimate directing principle of all movements seen in the world and the individuals. In other words, God-realisation or Self-realisation is the goal of life.

Thus, there is a purpose in the workings of Nature, of which the different individuals are parts and which constitutes their environment with which they are inextricably bound. Anticipating Hegel, as it were, he argues that the conclusions arrived at logically are not different from what exist really. He would agree with Hegel that logic and metaphysics are essentially one. To Spinoza thought and reality lose their distinctness and become one. Spinoza conceives the universe as an interrelated system in which every element is accommodated as an indispensable and necessary feature in the exact place assigned to it. The universe is a strictly determined whole and becomes rigid with the absence of any purpose or final aim directing it beyond itself.

Question : Descartes’ method of philosophy.

(2001)

Answer : Descartes was the first great philosopher of the modern era whose new approach won him recognition as the progenitor of modern philosophy. Descartes’ pursuit of mathematical and scientific truth soon led to a new tradition in philosophy. Much of his work was concerned with the provision of a secure foundation for the advancement of human knowledge through the natural sciences. After years of work in private, Descartes finally concluded that since mathematics has genuinely achieved the certainty for which human thinkers yearn, we rightly turn to mathematical reasoning as a model for progress in human knowledge more generally. Expressing perfect confidence in the capacity of human reason to achieve knowledge, Descartes proposed an intellectual process no less unsettling than the architectural destruction and rebuilding of an entire town. In order to be absolutely sure that we accept only what is genuinely certain, we must first deliberately renounce all of the firmly held but questionable beliefs we have previously acquired by experience and education. The progress and certainty of mathematical knowledge, Descartes supposed, provide a model for a similarly productive philosophical method, characterized by four simple rules:

Accept as true only what can not be contradicted.
Divide every question into manageable parts.
Begin with the simplest issues and ascend to the more complex.
Review frequently enough to retain the whole argument at once.

This quasi-mathematical procedure for the achievement of knowledge is typical of a rationalistic approach to epistemology. While engaged in such a comprehensive revision of our beliefs, Descartes supposed it prudent to adhere to a modest, conventional way of life that provides a secure and comfortable environment in which to pursue serious study.This “provisional morality” is evident in the emphasis on changing oneself to fit the world. Its general importance as an avenue to the contemplative life, however, is more general. Great intellectual upheavals can best be undertaken during relatively calm and stable periods of life. In this context, he offered a brief description of his own experience with the proper approach to knowledge.

Begin by renouncing any belief that can be doubted, including especially the testimony of the senses; then use the perfect certainty of one’s own existence, which survives this doubt, as the foundation for a demonstration of the providential reliability of one’s faculties generally. Significant knowledge of the world, Descartes supposed, can be achieved only by following this epistemological method. In fact, Descartes declared, most of human behavior, like that of animals, is susceptible to simple mechanistic explanation. Cleverly designed automata could successfully mimic nearly all of what we do. Thus, Descartes argued, it is only the general ability to adapt to widely varying circumstances—and, in particular, the capacity to respond creatively in the use of language—that provides a sure test for the presence of an immaterial soul associated with the normal human body. But Descartes supposed that no matter how human-like an animal or machine could be made to appear in its form or operations, it would always be possible to distinguish it from a real human being by two functional criteria.

Question : Monadology of Leibniz.

(2000)

Answer : Leibniz’s Monadology is a very concise and condensed presentation of his theory that the universe consists of an infinite number of substances called monads. Leibniz discusses the nature of monadic perception and consciousness, the principles which govern truth and reason, and the relation of the monadic universe to God. Leibniz defines a monad as a simple substance which cannot be divided into parts. A compound substance may be formed by an aggregation of monads. Thus, a compound substance may be divided into simple parts. According to Leibniz, monads differ in quality, and no two monads are exactly alike. Each monad has its own individual identity. Each monad has its own internal principle of being. A monad may undergo change, but this change is internally determined. Changes in the properties of any monad are not externally determined by other monads.

Each monad has a plurality of properties and relations, which constitutes its perception. Each monad has its own perceptions which differ from the perceptions of other monads. Perceptual changes are constituted by the internal actions of monads. Leibniz describes three levels of monads, which may be differentiated by their modes of perception a simple or bare monad has unconscious perception, but does not have memory. A simple or ordinary soul is a more highly developed monad, which has distinct perceptions, and which has conscious awareness and memory. A rational soul or spirit is an even more highly developed monad, which has self-consciousness and reason (both of which constitute “apperception”).

Leibniz says that necessary and eternal truths may be known by reason. A rational soul may know necessary and permanent truths, in contrast to an ordinary soul which can only connect perceptions by means of memory. A rational soul can know eternal truths about the universe and about the relation of the universe to God. A rational soul thinks of itself as limited, but thinks of God as unlimited. Leibniz explains that reason is governed by two main principles: the principle of contradiction, and the principle of sufficient reason. According to the principle of contradiction, a proposition must be either true or false. If two propositions are contradictory to each other, then one of the propositions must be true, and the other must be false. According to the principle of sufficient reason, nothing happens without a reason. No proposition can be true without a sufficient reason for its being true and not false. Leibniz also claims, however, that the ultimate reason of all things must be found in a necessary and universal substance, which is God. A primary substance is not material, according to Leibniz, because matter is infinitely divisible. Every monad is produced from a primary unity, which is God. Every monad is eternal, and contributes to the unity of all the other monads in the universe.

Leibniz says that there is only one necessary substance, and that this is God. A necessary substance is one whose existence is logically necessary. The existence of a necessary substance cannot be denied without causing some form of self-contradiction. Thus, God’s existence is logically necessary. God is absolutely real, infinite, and perfect. All perfection and all reality come from God. God, as the supreme monad, is an absolute unity. Leibniz explains that the perfection of a monad is revealed by its activity. The imperfection of a monad is revealed by its passivity. A monad is perfect insofar as it is active, and is imperfect insofar as it is passive. Actions and reactions are reciprocal relations between monads, and are constantly changing. The actions of some monads are a sufficient reason for the reactions of other monads. The reactions of some monads are given sufficient reason by the actions of other monads.

All of the actions and reactions of monads are governed by a principle of harmony, which is established by God. Leibniz also says that there are an infinite number of possible universes in the mind of God, but that God has chosen a single universe whose sufficient reason is that it is the best possible universe (i.e. having the highest possible degree of perfection). This claim may be disputed, however, because it may be misused as an argument for an excessive and unjustifiable form of optimism. Leibniz argues that God is supremely perfect, and that therefore God has chosen the best possible plan for the universe.

Question : Interactionism.

(1998)

Answer : Interactionism is the view put forth by Descartes to explain the body mind relationship. According to this theory mental states, such as beliefs and desires, causally interact with physical states. This is a position which is very appealing to common-sense intuitions, notwithstanding the fact that it is very difficult to establish its validity or correctness by way of argumentation or empirical proof. It seems to appeal to common-sense because we are surrounded by such everyday occurrences as a child’s touching a hot stove (physical event) which causes him to feel pain (mental event) and then yell and scream (physical event) which causes his parents to experience a sensation of fear and protectiveness (mental event) and so on.[ Varieties of dualism according to which an immaterial mind causally affects the material body and vice-versa have come under strenuous attack from different quarters, especially in the 20th century. Critics of dualism have often asked how something totally immaterial can affect something totally material. This is the basic problem of causal interaction. It can be broken down into three parts.

First, it is not clear where the interaction would take place. For example, burning one’s fingers cause pain. Apparently there is some chain of events, leading from the burning of skin, to the stimulation of nerve endings, to something happening in the peripheral nerves of one’s body that lead to one’s brain, to something happening in a particular part of one’s brain, and finally resulting in the sensation of pain. But pain is not supposed to be spatially localizable. It might be responded that the pain “takes place in the brain.” But, intuitively, pains are not located anywhere.

This may not be a devastating criticism. However, there is a second problem about the interaction. Namely, the question of how the interaction takes place. It may be supposed that this is solely a matter for science to resolve — scientists will eventually discover the connection between mental and physical events. But philosophers also have something to say about the matter, since the very notion of a mechanism which explains the connection between the mental and the physical would be very strange, at best. For example, compare such a mechanism to a mechanism that is well understood. Take a very simple causal relation, such as when a cue ball strikes an eight ball and causes it to go into the pocket. What happens in this case is that the cue ball has a certain amount of momentum as its mass moves across the pool table with a certain velocity, and then that momentum is transferred to the eight ball, which then heads toward the pocket. Compare this to the situation in the brain, where one wants to say that a decision causes some neurons to fire and thus causes a body to move across the room. The intention to “cross the room now” is a mental event and, as such, it does not have physical properties such as force. If it has no force, then it would seem that it could not possibly cause any neuron to fire. The puzzle is to explain how something without any physical properties could have any physical effects at all. Some philosophers have replied to this, as follows: there is indeed a mystery about how the interaction between mental and physical events can occur. But the fact that there is a mystery does not mean that there is no interaction. Plainly there is an interaction and plainly the interaction is between two totally different sorts of events. The problem with this response is that it does not seem to answer the full power of the objection. The objection can be formulated more precisely.

When a person decides to walk across a room, it is generally understood that the decision to do so, a mental event, immediately causes a group of neurons in that person’s brain to fire, a physical event, which ultimately results in his walking across the room. The problem is that if we have something totally nonphysical causing a bunch of neurons to fire, then there is no physical event which causes the firing. That means that some physical energy seems to have appeared out of thin air. Even if one maintains that the decision has some sort of mental energy, and that the decision causes the firing, there is still no explanation of where the physical energy for the firing came from. It just seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

Question : The idea of an all –perfect omnipotent being implies also that it or He exists.

(1997)

Answer : Descartes’ ontological (or a priori) argument is both one of the most fascinating and poorly understood aspects of his philosophy. Fascination with the argument stems from the effort to prove God’s existence from simple but powerful premises. Existence is derived immediately from the clear and distinct idea of a supremely perfect being. Ironically, the simplicity of the argument has also produced several misreading, exacerbated in part by Descartes’ failure to formulate a single version. The main statement of the argument appears in the Fifth Meditation. This comes on the heels of an earlier causal argument for God’s existence in the Third Meditation, raising questions about the order and relation between these two distinct proofs. He also defends it in the First, Second, and Fifth Replies against scathing objections by some of the leading intellectuals of his day.

Descartes was not the first philosopher to formulate an ontological argument. An earlier version of the argument had been vigorously defended by St. Anselm in the eleventh century, and then criticized by a monk named Gaunilo (Anselm’s contemporary) and later by St. Thomas Aquinas (though his remarks were directed against yet another version of the argument). Aquinas’ critique was regarded as so devastating that the ontological argument died out for several centuries. It thus came as a surprise to Descartes’ contemporaries that he should attempt to resurrect it. Although he claims not to be familiar with Anselm’s version of the proof, Descartes appears to craft his own argument so as to block traditional objections.

Despite similarities, Descartes’ version of the argument differs from Anselm’s in important ways. The latter’s version is thought to proceed from the meaning of the word “God,” by definition, God is a being a greater than which cannot be conceived. Descartes’ argument, in contrast, is grounded in two central tenets of his philosophy — the theory of innate ideas and the doctrine of clear and distinct perception. He purports not to rely on an arbitrary definition of God but rather on an innate idea whose content is “given.” Descartes’ version is also extremely simple. God’s existence is inferred directly from the fact that necessary existence is contained in the clear and distinct idea of a supremely perfect being. Indeed, on some occasions he suggests that the so-called ontological “argument” is not a formal proof at all but a self-evident axiom grasped intuitively by a mind free of philosophical prejudice.

Descartes often compares the ontological argument to a geometric demonstration, arguing that necessary existence cannot be excluded from idea of God anymore than the fact that its angles equal two right angles, for example, can be excluded from the idea of a triangle. The analogy underscores once again the argument’s supreme simplicity. God’s existence is purported to be as obvious and self-evident as the most basic mathematical truth. It also attempts to show how the “logic” of the demonstration is rooted in our ordinary reasoning practices. In the same context, Descartes also characterizes the ontological argument as a proof from the “essence” or “nature” of God, arguing that necessary existence cannot be separated from the essence of a supremely perfect being without contradiction. In casting the argument in these terms, he is implicitly relying on a traditional medieval distinction between a thing’s essence and its existence. According to this tradition, one can determine what something is (i.e. its essence), independently of knowing whether it exists. This distinction appears useful to Descartes’ aims, some have thought, because it allows him to specify God’s essence without begging the question of his existence

Question : State, explain and discuss the various theories in traditional European philosophy regarding the relationship of body and mind.

(1997)

Answer : The mind-body problem concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between mental processes, and bodily states or processes. The main aim of philosophers working in this area is to determine the nature of the mind and mental states/processes, and how—or even if—minds are affected by and can affect the body. Our perceptual experiences depend on stimulation which we receive from the external world and these stimuli cause changes in our mental states, ultimately causing us to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Someone’s desire for a slice of pizza, for example, will tend to cause that person to move his or her body in a specific manner and in a specific direction to obtain what he or she wants. The question, then, is how it can be possible for conscious experiences to arise out of a lump of gray matter endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties.

A related problem is to explain how someone’s beliefs and desires can cause that individual’s nerves to fire and his muscles to contract in exactly the correct manner. These comprise some of the puzzles that have confronted philosophers’ mind. In traditional European philosophy the earliest discussions of dualist ideas are in the writings of Aristotle and Plato. Each of these maintained, but for different reasons, that humans’ “intelligence” (a faculty of the mind or soul) could not be identified with, or explained in terms of, their physical body. However, Descartes’ view is the best-known version of dualism that holds that the mind is a non-extended, non-physical substance. He was therefore the first to formulate the mind-body problem in the form in which it still exists today.

The main argument in favor of dualism is that it appeals to the common-sense intuition that conscious experience is distinct from inanimate matter. If asked what the mind is, the average person would usually respond by identifying it with their self their personality, their self, or some other such entity. They would almost certainly deny that the mind simply is the brain, or vice-versa, finding the idea that there is just one entity at play to be too mechanistic, or simply unintelligible. The majority of modern philosophers of mind think that these intuitions, like many others, are probably misleading and that we should use our critical faculties, along with empirical evidence from the sciences, to examine these assumptions to determine whether there is any real basis to them.

Interactionist dualism, or simply Interactionism, is the particular form of dualism first espoused by Descartes in the Meditations. It is the view that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, causally interact with physical states. Descartes’ famous argument for this position can be summarized as follows: Seth has a clear and distinct idea of his mind as a thinking thing which has no spatial extension (i.e., it cannot be measured in terms of length, weight, height, and so on). He also has a clear and distinct idea of his body as something that is spatially extended, subject to quantification and not able to think. It follows that mind and body are not identical because they have radically different properties. At the same time, however, it is clear that Seth’s mental states (desires, beliefs, etc.) have causal effects on his body and vice-versa: A child touches a hot stove (physical event) which causes pain (mental event) and makes her yell (physical event), this in turn provokes a sense of fear and protectiveness in the caregiver (mental event), and so on.

Descartes’ argument crucially depends on the premise that what Seth believes to be “clear and distinct” ideas in his mind are necessarily true. Many contemporary philosophers doubt this. For example, one suggests that several scientific discoveries made since the early 20th century have undermined the idea of privileged access to one’s own ideas. Freud has shown that a psychologically-trained observer can understand a person’s unconscious motivations better than the person himself does. Duhem has shown that a philosopher of science can know a person’s methods of discovery better than that person herself does, while Malinowski has shown that an anthropologist can know a person’s customs and habits better than the person whose customs and habits they are. He also asserts that modern psychological experiments that cause people to see things that are not there provide grounds for rejecting Descartes’ argument, because scientists can describe a person’s perceptions better than the person herself can.

The argument given by Spinoza for body-mind relationship is called Parallelism. He is of the view that mind and body, while having distinct ontological statuses, do not causally influence one another. Instead, they run along parallel paths (mind events causally interact with mind events and brain events causally interact with brain events) and only seem to influence each other. Another European philosopher Leibniz was an ontological monist who believed that only one type of substance, the monad, exists in the universe, and that everything is reducible to it, he nonetheless maintained that there was an important distinction between “the mental” and “the physical” in terms of causation. This is called the doctrine of pre- established harmony. . He held that God had arranged things in advance so that minds and bodies would be in harmony with each other.

Melebranche espoused another theory called Occasionalism which asserts that all supposedly causal relations between physical events, or between physical and mental events, are not really causal at all. While body and mind are different substances, causes (whether mental or physical) are related to their effects by an act of God’s intervention on each specific occasion. One more doctrine first formulated by Thomas Henry consists in the view that mental phenomena are causally ineffectual. Physical events can cause other physical events and physical events can cause mental events, but mental events cannot cause anything, since they are just causally inert by-products (i.e. epiphenomena) of the physical world. This view has been defended most strongly in recent times by Frank Jack. One more theory named Property Dualism asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e. in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge. These emergent properties have an independent ontological status and cannot be reduced to, or explained in terms of, the physical substrate from which they emerge. This position is espoused by David.