Compare And Contrast Descartes And Plato

In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes makes a point that there is a distinction between mind and body. It is in Meditation Two when Descartes believes he has shown the mind to be better known than the body. In Meditation Six, however, he goes on to claim that, as he knows his mind and knows clearly and distinctly that its essence consists purely of thought. Also, that bodies' essences consist purely of extension, and that he can conceive of his mind and body as existing separately. By the power of God, anything that can be clearly and distinctly conceived of as existing separately from something else can be created as existing separately. However, Descartes claims that the mind and body have been created separated without good reason. This

In this essay it will be argued that the soul is mortal and does not survive the death of the body. As support, the following arguments from Lucretius will be examined: the “proof from the atomic structure of the soul,” the “proof from parallelism of mind and body,” the “proof from the sympatheia of mind and body,” and the “proof from the structural connection between mind and body.” The following arguments from Plato will be used as counterarguments against Lucretius: the “cyclical argument,” the “affinity argument,” the “argument from the form of life,” and the “recollection argument.” It will be shown that Plato’s premises lack validity and that Lucretius’

Descartian dualism is one of the most long lasting legacies of Rene Descartes’ philosophy. He argues that the mind and body operate as separate entities able to exist without one another. That is, the mind is a thinking, non-extended entity and the body is non-thinking and extended. His belief elicited a debate over the nature of the mind and body that has spanned centuries, a debate that is still vociferously argued today. In this essay, I will try and tackle Descartes claim and come to some conclusion as to whether Descartes is correct to say that the mind and body are distinct.

Curtis Strickland Compare and contrast The Matrix with the readings from Plato and Descartes. What are some similarities and differences? Upon reading the synopsis on The Matrix and the excerpts on Plato’s cave analogy and Descartes’ reflections, the greatest similarity is that they all question whether or not the reality we experience is definite and material, or if it is just a distortion of reality. A movie about a computer-simulated reality, The Matrix depicts a world where everyone is connected to a super computer and their virtual reality is a delusion (“Synopsis: The Matrix,” n.d.).

Many questions may come to mind when one seeks to understand life and mankind presence. What can I possibly find out? What is real or facts? Are we able to determine reality? For one to answer these question would be quite challenging. However, the matrix, Plato’s The Allegory of Cave, and Discartes’ “Meditation I” shares their understanding of how one can determine reality.

Plato, Descartes, and The Matrix Carolyn Strickland September 27, 2015 Phil 201-B25 LUO   Plato, Descartes and The Matrix 1. Compare and contrast The Matrix with the readings from Plato and Descartes. What are some similarities and differences?

1. Compare and contrast The Matrix with the readings from Plato and Descartes. What are some similarities and differences? The matrix Synopsis and the two excerpts possess similarities between the texts.

In this paper, I will discuss the “Divisibility argument” on Descartes mind- body dualism presented on Descartes meditations. I will claim that the mind and the body are in fact different as Descartes argument suggests, but I will more rather neglect and explain why his belief that the mind is indivisible is wrong. I also will discuss how Descartes argument on the body’s divisibility is reasonable, and the reasons why I believe this argument is true.

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing”. [1] The concept that the mind is an intangible, thinking entity while the body is a tangible entity not capable of thought is known as Cartesian Dualism. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Descartes tries to prove that the mind or soul is, in its essential nature, entirely distinct from the

In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes continues with his discussion about the mind-body problem by addressing the relationship between the mind and body. Descartes states that Anature ...teaches me by these feelings of pain, hunger, thirst, and so on that I am not only residing in my body, as a pilot in his ship, but furthermore, that I am intimately connected with it...@(Descartes 76). This relationship is the connection between the physical needs of the body and the mental acknowledgment of those needs. Although the mind and body are blended, the mind is the most essential.

Mind-body dualism is usually seen as the central issue in philosophy of the mind. The problem with mind-body dualism is that it is unknown whether the mind really is a separate entity from the human body as Descartes states in his argument, or whether the mind is the brain itself. Descartes believed that in a person existed two major components, the physical body and the nonphysical body which was called the mind or soul. As a scientist, Descartes believed in mechanical theories of matter, however, he was also very religious and did not believe people could merely be mechanical creatures that ran like “clockwork.” And so, it was Descartes who argued that the mind directed thoughts. To account for this, he split the world into two parts,

Descartes has a very distinct thought when thinking about the mind, and how it relates to the body, or more specifically then brain. He seems to want to explain that the mind in itself is independent from the body. A body is merely a physical entity that could be proven to be true scientifically and also can be proven through the senses. Such things are not possible with the meta-physical mind because it is independent of the body. Building on his previous premises, Descartes finally proves whether material things exist or not and determines whether his mind and body are separate from each other or not. In Meditation Six, Descartes lays the foundation for dualism which has become one of the most important arguments in philosophy.

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes has drawn a really sharp distinction between the mind and the body. Descartes argue that the mind is a thinking, non-extended thing, while the body is an extended, non-thinking thing. Therefore mind and body have nothing in common and can understand themselves without the existence of the other. In his Letter of Dedication, Descartes states that the purpose of him proving that “God exists and that the human mind is distinct from the body” (Descartes 2) is for those irreligious people who only believe in mathematics and will not believe in the immortality of human soul without a mathematical demonstration of it. However, since we do not have any experience of minds that can exist without a body and a body that exist without a mind, the argument would only reasonable if Descartes clear and distinct perception can guarantee the truth.

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes argues that the mind and the body are distinct on the grounds that one can clearly and distinctly conceive of the mind without the body. In this essay, I will argue that Descartes’ argument is unsound, because merely conceiving something does not make it so. However, Descartes might respond that I am viewing his argument in the incorrect way, where in the text his argument actually focuses on the difference between the mind and the body’s essence rather than about their conceivability, but nevertheless, I would still argue that his argument is unsound, because his claim on the indivisibility and the non-extension of the mind for his argument appears to be false based on modern studies and researches.

Reason is the foundation for happiness in a civilization. Mephisto may argue that reason leads to the suffering of humanity, but Descartes and Plato would disagree with his criticisms.