Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T08:54:34.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Human Being

from ENTRIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

By
Dominik Perler
Edited by
Lawrence Nolan
Dominik Perler
Affiliation:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
Lawrence Nolan
Affiliation:
California State University, Long Beach
Get access

Summary

Despite his famous claim that mind and body are really distinct substances, Descartes repeatedly points out that a human being is not a mere composite of two entities. For example, he calls the human being “a true ens per se” and asserts that the mind “is united in a real and substantial manner to the body” (AT III 493, CSMK 206). If we intend to give a full account of a human being, we need notions not just of mind and of body but also of the union of mind and body – the latter notion being as primitive as the other two and therefore irreducible to them (AT III 665, 691; CSMK 218, 226). Only this third notion enables us to describe and explain the features that are distinctive of a living human being – namely, sensory perceptions and passions (see primitive notion).

Given this thesis, it is hardly surprising that Descartes does not conceive of himself as a purely immaterial mind once he has completed an analysis of mind and body. Nor does he claim that his body is only accidentally connected to his mind, serving as a mere instrument. In the Sixth Meditation, he unmistakably holds that his mind is not in his body as a sailor is present in a ship. It is rather “very closely joined” to the body and, as it were, “intermingled with it” (AT VII 81, CSM II 56). Should there be no intermingling, no sensations of hunger, thirst, and pain could arise, because it is neither the mind alone nor the body alone that has these states, but the union of mind and body.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon , pp. 369 - 379
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aquinas, Thomas. 1952. Summa theologiae, ed. by Caramello, P.. Torino: Marietti.Google Scholar
Alanen, Lilli. 2008. “Descartes’ Mind-Body Composites, Psychology and Naturalism,” Inquiry 51: 464–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Deborah J. 2006. Descartes and the Passionate Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, Vere. 1994. “L'homme cartésien,” in Descartes: Objecter et répondre, ed. Beyssade, J.-M. and Marion, J.-L.. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 403–26.Google Scholar
Cottingham, John. 1985. “Cartesian Trialism,” Mind 94: 218–30 (reprint, Cartesian Reflections: Essays on Descartes's Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 173–87.)Google Scholar
Des Chene, Dennis. 2001. Spirits and Clocks: Machine and Organism in Descartes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Des Chene, Dennis. 2000. Life's Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Garber, Daniel. 1992. Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hattab, Helen. 2009. Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Paul. 2008. “The Union and Interaction of Mind and Body,” in A Companion to Descartes, ed. Broughton, J. and Carriero, J.. Oxford: Blackwell, 390–403.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Paul. 2007. “Descartes's Watch Analogy,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15: 561–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Paul. 1990. “Cartesian Passions and Cartesian Dualism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 71: 310–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Paul. 1986. “The Unity of Descartes's Man,” Philosophical Review 95: 339–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Daniel. 2008. “Descartes on Composites, Incomplete Substances, and Kinds of Unity,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 90: 39–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Peter. 2008. “The Inner Cathedral: Mental Architecture in High Scholasticism,” Vivarium 46: 253–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadler, Steven. 1994. “Descartes and Occasional Causation,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 2: 35–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perler, Dominik. 1996. Repräsentation bei Descartes. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radner, Daisie. 1985. “Is There a Problem of Cartesian Interaction?,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 23: 35–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodis-Lewis, Geneviève. 1990. L'anthropologe cartésienne. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Rozemond, Marleen. 2010. “Descartes and the Immortality of the Soul,” in Mind, Method and Morality. Essays in Honour of Anthony Kenny, ed. Cottingham, J. and Hacker, P.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 252–71.Google Scholar
Rozemond, Marleen. 2003. “Descartes, Mind-Body Union, and Holenmerism,” Philosophical Topics 31: 343–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozemond, Marleen. 1998. Descartes's Dualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schmaltz, Tad M. 1992. “Descartes and Malebranche on Mind and Mind-Body Union,” Philosophical Review 101: 281–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Lisa. 2003. “Descartes’ Passions of the Soul and the Union of Mind and Body,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 85: 211–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, Alison. 1999. “Are Cartesian Sensations Representational?,” Noûs 33: 347–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voss, Stephen. 1994. “Descartes: The End of Anthropology,” in Reason, Will and Sensation, ed. Cottingham, J., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 273–306.Google Scholar
Watson, Richard. 1987. The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics. Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1978. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. Harmondsworth: Penguin Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Human Being
    • By Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
  • Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
  • Book: The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
  • Online publication: 05 January 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894695.134
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Human Being
    • By Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
  • Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
  • Book: The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
  • Online publication: 05 January 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894695.134
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Human Being
    • By Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
  • Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
  • Book: The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
  • Online publication: 05 January 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894695.134
Available formats
×