Lyceum & Book Club - Week 20 - Rene' Descartes
- Apr 8, 2022
- 4 min read
Let's review some background knowledge before we get to Descartes.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave - Alex Gendler - 4:32 min
365 Days of Philosophy podcast:
Episode Day 26 — The Theory Of Forms
One of Plato’s most famous theories is related to knowing — the Theory Of Forms. The basic idea is that we understand the world around us through our senses, but we are only seeing shadows or representations of unchanging, eternal ‘essences’ that are known as forms. These forms are the true reality and all genuine knowledge is knowledge of those forms.
The idea of the theory of the forms come from Plato’s Republic, with his parable of the cave:
[Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: — Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets….they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave… what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error.
At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
This theory, according to Plato, is the basis of things around us — there is an essence of ‘dog-ness’ that is behind all kinds of dogs, for example. We can identify a square, because there is a true, eternal square that is the basis of all squares in an imperfect world. We are only seeing the shadows of the puppets, while chained in a cave.
Of course, this has issues with where these perfect forms are, and it does seem like a simple solution to making a basis for knowing things and even how to behave (is there a ‘perfect form’ of a human being, with perfect behaviour as well?). However, the theory does provide us with an interesting proposal on how do we trust our senses and if there are standards or definitions for things, which we then build upon.
The History Guide: Allegory of the Cave - this gives the long version - optional
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Where Does Your Mind Reside?: Crash Course Philosophy #22 - 9:06 min
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From 365days of philosophy:
The mind-body problem seems fairly straightforward — it’s where we question the relationship between the physical and observable (our bodies, for example the brain), and the theoretical and untouchable elements like the mind or even the soul.
You might recall from episode 26, where we discussed the theory of the forms; that’s where one of the earliest examples where questions about what is going on with the body were raised, and whether it is separate from the world of the forms and limited, unlike the soul.
But the most famous account is by Rene Descartes, where he argues that the mind was explainable through a part of the brain called the pineal gland; the ‘principal seat of the soul and where all our thoughts are formed’ — the ‘gland makes the spirits move the limbs’, as he wrote in the Treatise of Man and Passions of the Soul. As the mind and body are so different, they cannot be the same thing and work separately. This theory is known as Cartesian dualism or substance dualism, the mind is separate but can influence matter.
So some theories to keep in mind (no pun intended!) — that dualism is where there is a distinction, a separation between mind and matter. Monism is the opposite, where there’s a single reality that can explain it all.
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Below are sites you can get more information on mind-body problem, if you desire - optional
The mind and body appear on first view to be very distinct entities, but yet they interact most strongly in some as yet unknown manner. The nature of these two entities and their interaction poses the mind-body problem. Here we consider various solutions to the mind-body problem and review what progress has been made to solve it.
All in the Mind with Sana Cadar - audio podcast - 31 min
The Mind-Body Problem Down Under
Mind. Brain. Are they the same thing, or is the mind something special? The conundrum has perplexed us for centuries. Descartes' split the two - into a spiritual, soul-like mind and fleshly, material brain. But in 1956 a group of 'renegade' Oxford graduates Down Under, now international stars in philosophy, launched a challenge. Consciousness and the brain were united, and any talk of mental spooks and ghosts in the machine was out...almost. Now in their 80s, David Armstrong and Jack Smart join Natasha Mitchell and others to reminisce on taking Descartes to task
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Decartes - 1596 - 1650
Rene Descartes Biography - Cloudbiography - 1.43 min
Rene Descartes - “I think, therefore I am” - 1:56
Three Minute Philosophy: Rene Descartes - College Binary - 3.56 min
PHILOSOPHY - René Descartes - 8.48 min
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Book to Read:
Continue Reading "Stranger in a Strange Land?
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