Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Soul and the Body

In the “Passions of the Soul,” Descartes shows us the difference between the soul and the body. Everything created have both internal and external functions that form what we perceive it to be. The soul has an internal motion, whereas the body has an external motion. Descartes says men have a soul and a body, and together they form the perception we have of ourselves. Each function of the body or the soul has a cause--- a passion/ action that allows it to perform another function. Passion and action have the same meaning. Both terms have different names because they represent two different subjects, the soul and the body. Passion is used when referring to the soul, and action refers to the body.

Passions in the soul is a consequent of an action in the body. The reason we differentiate the body from the soul is so that we know what functions correspond to each one. Descartes believes that what one can perceive is attributed by the body while what one cannot perceive, reflects the soul. One cannot define the body without knowing what the soul is; like the idea of not being able to know what finite things are unless you know what infinite things are. A person thinks with the soul and its movement corresponds to the actions of the body. Therefore, a person cannot not move with the help of the soul or cannot think with the body; two oxymoron in Descartes point of view. Many people confuse this idea because they believe that the body no longer has motion due to its separation of the soul after death. The body no longer has motion because its organs, the cause of its movements, have decayed.

The organs cause the bodily motions while the soul functions are determined by our thoughts, thoughts that are defined as the wills and perceptions of the soul. Descartes defines the will as a desire of wanting something and making it possible, such as the will to walk which makes the actual walking possible. Perception just becomes ease for the will to become true. As learned in class, “will is more free, the more it is inclined to what is true” (Vaught).

Passion is the wanting something and going for it. Passions make the soul desire what it wants for its body. Therefore, one can decipher that an individual’s passion somehow foreshadows the person’s actions carried out through the body because both passion and action are in truth a reflection of the other. Descartes separates the body and the soul in order to define each one’s purpose and by separating the two, we understand that both the body and the soul go hand in hand to form the single individual that completes us all.

What is the primary function that one can say links the body and soul together as a whole?

Why does Descartes want to differentiate the soul from the body yet still continues to show how they both stand hand in hand in relationship to an individual?

1 comment:

Ajten Ajvazoska said...

Interesting question Carolina, i'm not sure if my response will help answer your question or even have anything to do with it but, I believe Descartes wants to seperate the soul from the body becuase maybe the body is what tricks the mind. We can say the body is controlled by the mind, however, it can decieve us through our senses. I figure that the mind is the purest thing we have, as it helps us realize that we exist. Therefore, getting rid of the body and concentrating on just the soul gives us the truth, just like how we need to get rid our our senses to find the basis of the truth, which is God.