- Published: October 2, 2022
- Updated: October 2, 2022
- University / College: Emory University
- Level: Intermediate School
- Language: English
- Downloads: 51
Dualism by Plato and Descartes
Perhaps the simplest way to understand the mind-body split of Plato’s Platonic dualism and Rene Descartes’s Cartesian dualism is to illustrate the difference of these two perspectives about dualism. Their differences lies in the treatment of the mind and soul with regard to the body which Plato accepts and where Descartes rejects the idea that the soul is identical with the body and Plato’s belief of the pre-existence of the soul.
Descarte’s Cartesian dualism separates mind from the soul. For Descartes, soul is what animates the body and the mind’s job is to think and imagine. Such is why he is being famous of the adage “ I think, therefore I am”.
Plato differs from Descartes in a manner that he held that soul can think better when it is separated from the body. Whereas for Descartes, soul has to be integrated with the body for it to function while Plato thought that the soul ought to be separated from the body so that it can think better. For Plato, the soul has already a “ pure and perfect” knowledge even before the birth of the body and it is at its thinking best when it is in this condition without the distraction of everyday life. While Descartes thought the soul is necessary to animate the body, Plato thought that the soul is in its “ ideal” condition when it is separated from the body upon death.
Considering this viewpoint of Plato that the soul has already a perfect knowledge even before it was born to a body, provides human experience with moral value because the soul already has this moral predisposition even before it was born into a body. Cartesian dualism provides us the confidence that this moral predisposition has its use when the soul animates the body because it provides human endeavor a sense of rectitude.
