Descartes’ Dualism: Reason, Soul, and the Pursuit of Truth
Descartes’ Dualism: A Comparison with Plato
Like Plato, Descartes advocates for a dualistic view of humanity. Plato divided reality into two realms: the sensible (body) and the intelligible (the world of ideas). Descartes mirrors this division within the human being itself, distinguishing between the body and reason (ideas). Both philosophers emphasize the distinct existence of the soul and its immortality.
Plato’s division places the body within the sensible world, further differentiating it into the irascible and concupiscent aspects of the soul. The spiritual soul resides in the intelligible world. Plato believed that true knowledge (episteme) is unattainable without separating the body from the soul, thus affirming the soul’s immortality and its access to universal models of reality, the Ideas (theory of Forms).
Descartes equates the soul with reason, defining humans as thinking substances whose existence is independent of the body. Descartes divides reason into three types of ideas: adventitious ideas (derived from external sources, mirroring Plato’s sensible world), fictitious ideas (produced by reason itself), and innate ideas (inherent to thought and not derived from experience). These last two categories align with Plato’s world of Ideas.
The Life and Times of René Descartes
René Descartes was born in 1596 in La Haye en Touraine (France). A significant period in his life was his time at the Jesuit College of La Flèche (1604-1612), where he studied classical humanities, scholastic philosophy, and mathematics. He served in various armies and traveled throughout Europe, deepening his studies in mathematics and physics.
Descartes experienced three dreams that inspired him to seek truth through reason, the central tenet of his method. He settled in Holland, where he began his prolific philosophical work. Queen Christina of Sweden summoned him to Stockholm to instruct her in his philosophy, where he died in 1650.
The Historical Context: Religious Conflict and the Rise of Reason
Descartes lived during a time of great conflict in Europe, largely driven by religious intolerance and the pursuit of political dominance. The Thirty Years’ War, one of the bloodiest conflicts, occurred during Descartes’ lifetime.
The political and religious climate of Europe influenced philosophy. Descartes observed that philosophy was mired in doubt and uncertainty. His objective was to establish a general foundation of knowledge, necessitating a new philosophical approach. He chose reason as his sole instrument.
Descartes’ Subjectivism and the Break with Scholasticism
The Baroque era, dominated by anthropocentrism, placed human beings at the center of reflection. A key feature of Descartes’ rationalist philosophy is subjectivism: human beings can only know their own thoughts. Descartes’ philosophy radically departs from the scholastic philosophy prevalent in universities.
Rationalism emerged in the seventeenth century, alongside philosophical empiricism. Both shared the subjectivist characteristic of modern philosophy, focusing on our knowledge of ideas rather than direct knowledge of things.
Rationalism vs. Empiricism: The Source of Knowledge
The fundamental difference between rationalism and empiricism lies in the origin of ideas. Empiricism posits that experience is the source, while rationalism asserts that reason is the source of all knowledge.
Rationalism, alongside empiricism, is a major philosophical current of modern philosophy, spanning from Descartes to Kant (17th and 18th centuries). While both streams addressed the source of knowledge (reason vs. experience), rationalism is distinguished by its emphasis on reason as the primary source of knowledge, devaluing sensory experience. Key figures in this movement, besides Descartes, include Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz.