English Science and Literature club🤓✍️📖

305.

December 9, 2024 (14283)
Is there something more in Descartes’ “res cogitans” than a mere denial of “res extensa”? Descartes rejects the idea of “empty space”. He says that wherever there is an extension, there is always something. No vacuum. Yet, he believes that his mind is somehow located outside of the extended substance and has magical power to causally affect bodily movements. Why does Descartes cling to this dualist framework? Why does he need the mind to be distinct ontologically from the body? Is he motivated by the fear of death? Did he “convince himself so completely that nothing else was in his power other than his thoughts”? Was “this conviction along sufficient to prevent him from having any desire for anything else”?
There were many philosophers who dedicated their lives to thinking, but how many of them believed (or fooled themselves into believing) that they were just “thinking beings” – res cogitans – and nothing else?
There are all of these people competing with each other for having more stuff, more property, women, men, children, social connections – and this guy comes along and says, “I have my thoughts; they are more valuable than everything else anyone can have; I get more and more every day; no one among the greatest thinkers of all time has as vivid and clear thoughts as I have; and there is no way to take them away from me since I’m beyond space and nothing can hurt me.” Sure you can own the entirety of the extended world, but who cares about it? On the other hand, I, Descartes, own my thoughts and do not depend on anything to exist. My body is going to be dead sooner or later, but whoever is going to think along the same lines in the future, this thinking thing, quod ordine philosophando cogniscimus, I’m going to be it. It’s going to be me. Even if I forget Latin and French and don’t pay much attention to geometry and cosmology, as long as I identify with a thinking thing and as long as there is going to be at least one person who thinks, I’m going to be it. It’s going to be me. I, you, he, she – it’s all one and the same thinking thing. Can you dig it?

www.tgoop.com/clubscience/88

11 viewsVladimir Svetashev, Dec 9 at 11:56

305.

December 9, 2024 (14283)
Is there something more in Descartes’ “res cogitans” than a mere denial of “res extensa”? Descartes rejects the idea of “empty space”. He says that wherever there is an extension, there is always something. No vacuum. Yet, he believes that his mind is somehow located outside of the extended substance and has magical power to causally affect bodily movements. Why does Descartes cling to this dualist framework? Why does he need the mind to be distinct ontologically from the body? Is he motivated by the fear of death? Did he “convince himself so completely that nothing else was in his power other than his thoughts”? Was “this conviction along sufficient to prevent him from having any desire for anything else”?
There were many philosophers who dedicated their lives to thinking, but how many of them believed (or fooled themselves into believing) that they were just “thinking beings” – res cogitans – and nothing else?
There are all of these people competing with each other for having more stuff, more property, women, men, children, social connections – and this guy comes along and says, “I have my thoughts; they are more valuable than everything else anyone can have; I get more and more every day; no one among the greatest thinkers of all time has as vivid and clear thoughts as I have; and there is no way to take them away from me since I’m beyond space and nothing can hurt me.” Sure you can own the entirety of the extended world, but who cares about it? On the other hand, I, Descartes, own my thoughts and do not depend on anything to exist. My body is going to be dead sooner or later, but whoever is going to think along the same lines in the future, this thinking thing, quod ordine philosophando cogniscimus, I’m going to be it. It’s going to be me. Even if I forget Latin and French and don’t pay much attention to geometry and cosmology, as long as I identify with a thinking thing and as long as there is going to be at least one person who thinks, I’m going to be it. It’s going to be me. I, you, he, she – it’s all one and the same thinking thing. Can you dig it?

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