Fun facts about Descartes  

• The man who invented analytic geometry, René Descartes (1596-1650), never got out of bed before 11 in the morning! 

• It is said (although the story is probably a myth) that Descartes came up with the idea for his coordinate system while lying in bed and watching a fly crawl on the ceiling of his room. 

• An asteroid named after Rene desCartes was called, "3587 Descartes." 

• At the age of eight, desCartes entered college and stayed for eight years
• He never married.
• The Pope banned his works from the Catholic church.
• In the 19th century, Count Guglielmo Libri stole a letter about desCartes publication of Meditations on First Philosophy. The letter was from *Rene to his friend. 
• DesCartes liked dressing up in fancy clothes. 

References 

Carlson, N.R. (2004). Physiology of Behavior (8^thed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Clarke, D.M. (2006). Descartes: A Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 Maclean, I. (2006). Rene Descartes: A discourse on the method. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.

Rand, B. (2004). Modern classical philosophers: Selections illustrating modern philosophy from Bruno to Spencer. New Delhi: Cosmo Publications.  

Personal reflections & Critique 

 

Rene Descartes views were the first to establish that a mind exists and that one can be aware of it.

He stated “I can conceive the mind without the body and vice versa. If I can view them distinctly, they are distinct”. However, there is a tremendous interaction between the two-e.g. psychosomatic diseases.

He also once stated that, “thinking and reasoning are different from physical states.” However, when thinking of examples, we realize that we do not perceive colors as a matrix of molecules reflecting light. Warmth does not feel like molecules vibrating. As a result, they both go hand and hand

Conclusion 

 

Mainly, three trends in psychology may be traced to Descartes. First, psychology as an

introspective science investigating human consciousness finds support in the validity of the

first principle of the mind espoused by Descartes.

Second, psychology as a purely behavioral study is reinforced, although somewhat indirectly,

by Cartesian dualism; that is, the interaction between mind and body indicates that overt,

observable behavior is meaningful. Such activity reflects the mind, as the mind acts on the

body, producing behavior.

Finally, psychology as a physiological science is supported by Descartes’ assertion that all

human activities except thinking and feeling are related to bodily physiology and maybe

understood as truly psychophysiological.

Descartes and the Princess of Bohemia  

It is important to mention the influence of Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia on Descartes. She had read the copy of Meditations and was interested in discussing this book with Descartes. Her question was: “How can the human soul, which is only a thinking substance, determine the movements of animal spirits in order to perform a voluntary action?” Descartes in his reply, suggested, that one might think of the mind as causing the human body to move without being itself another body that moves by impact. As a result, he again gives importance to the principles of metaphysics as they provide us with knowledge of God and of our soul. He also underlines the importance of imagination and experience of every individual which again contributes to the understanding of the world outside. 


In another conversation between Descartes and Elizabeth, which again happened through letters, we see that Elizabeth started sharing herself and her personal features. Once Descartes heard from Pallot that the princess was suffering from a fever and a dry cough and since, she had asked Descartes for an advice on ‘conservation of her health’, he felt emboldened enough to inquire about the details of her sickness. While acknowledging that he is not a physician, he says that the most usual cause of a low fever is sadness. This thought had important implications as we see a psychosomatic diagnosis being offered here. In fact, psychosomatic problems have become a serious area of concern today, with immense scope for further research. Descartes then appeals to his assumption about mind-body interaction to suggest a remedy, in the course of which he makes one of the first references to the passions, a topic that later emerges as central to his philosophy. He recommends that Elizabeth use her mind to overcome the baneful effects of negative emotions and that she rally her mental strength to combat an illness that results from an underlying mental state. 

"The Meditations" by Descartes 


The meditations on first philosophy; (1641): (subtitled in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated) is a philosophical treatise. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things which are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. The meditations were written as if he were meditating for 6 days: each meditation refers to the last one as "yesterday". (In fact, Descartes began work on the Meditations in 1639.)
The Meditations consist of the presentation of Descartes' metaphysical system in its most detailed level and in the expanding of Descartes' philosophical system. 


Meditation I: Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt - If I am dreaming/deceived, then my beliefs/senses are unreliable. 



Meditation II: Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind: That it is better known Than the Body - In other words, one's consciousness implies one's existence.


Meditation III: Concerning God, That He Exists - He argues that the idea of God is Innate and placed in us by God, and he rejected the possibility that the idea of God is Invented or Adventitious.


Meditation IV: Concerning the True and the False - If I've gotten everything in me from God and He hasn't given me the ability to make errors, it doesn't seem possible for me ever to error.


Meditation V: Concerning the Essence of Material Things, and Again Concerning God, That He Exists - Before asking whether any such objects exist outside me, I ought to consider the ideas of these objects as they exist in my thoughts and see which are clear and which confused.


Meditation VI: Concerning the Existence of Material Things and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body - Descartes addresses the potential existence of material outside of the self and God. First, he asserts that such objects can exist simply because God is able to make them. Knowing that the existence of such objects is possible, Descartes then turns to the prevalence of mental images as proof.

Mind and Body- Dualism 

Like most philosophers of his time, Descartes was a dualist; he believed that each person possessed a mind – a uniquely human attribute that was not subject to the laws of the universe. But his thinking differed from that of his predecessors in one important way; he was the first to suggest that a link exists between the human mind and its purely physical housing, the brain. He believed that the mind controlled the movements of the body, while the body, through its sense organs, supplied the mind with information about what was happening in the environment. In particular, he hypothesized that this interaction took place in the pineal body, a small organ situated on the top of the brain stem, buried beneath the cerebral hemispheres. He noted that the brain contained hollow chambers (the ventricles) that were filled with fluid, and he hypothesized that this fluid was under pressure. When the mind decided to perform an action, it tilted the pineal body in a particular direction like a little joystick, causing fluid flow from the brain to the appropriate set of nerves. This flow of fluid caused the same muscles to inflate and move.  


Descartes saw the competition between the body and soul as the essence of the human condition. His interest in the mind and body and his study of physiology led to some views that were used for quite some time, one being that of mechanization, the idea that a body with no soul was mechanical in nature and incapable of feeling. Or more closely related to psychology he proposed that external motions affect the peripheral ends of the nerve fibrils, which in turn displace the central ends. As these are displaced the pattern of interfibrillarspace is rearranged and the flow of spirits is thereby directed into the appropriate nerves. It was this articulation for a response that has lead to a general credit for the founding of the reflex theory, something that has proven to be of great interest to psychologist.  Future psychologists such as Fechner have used a form of the mechanization. 


Descartes also was interested in the brain and its function as well as its physical make up. Descartes' theory that the brain is the most important organ in the mediation of behavior certainly would be a contributing factor to the theories of people like Sigmund Freud. The works of Descartes have also played a role in the development of the field of neuropsychology, which is extremely prevalent today. By drawing a radical ontological distinction between body as extended and mind as pure thought, Descartes, in search of certitude, had paradoxically created intellectual chaos.  

Descartes'  "Discourse on the Method" 



In his book Discourse on the Method, he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt. To achieve this, he employs a method called hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt, also sometimes referred to as methodological skepticism: he rejects any ideas that can be doubted, and then reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge. The four principles that he proposed are as follows,

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice.
The second to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex.
The last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews s general, that I be assured that nothing was omitted.  

Thus, initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle: thought exists. Thought cannot be separated from me, therefore, I exist. Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum (English: "I think, therefore I am"). Therefore, Descartes concluded, if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting; therefore the very fact that he doubted proved his existence. "The simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is skeptical of existence that is in and of itself proof that he does exist." 
He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been unreliable. 
To further demonstrate the limitations of the senses, Descartes proceeds with what is known as the Wax Argument. He considers a piece of wax; his senses inform him that it has certain characteristics, such as shape, texture, size, color, smell, and so forth. When he brings the wax towards a flame, these characteristics change completely. However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still the same piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different. Therefore, in order to properly grasp the nature of the wax, he should put aside the senses. He must use his mind. 

Descartes' Dreams -

Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to provide a philosophical framework for the natural sciences as these began to develop.
On the night of 10–11 November 1619, while stationed in Neuburgan der Donau, Germany, Descartes experienced a series of three powerful dreams or visions that he later claimed profoundly influenced his life. In the first of these dreams, Descartes found himself buffeted and thrown down by a powerful whirlwind while walking near a college. In the second, he was awoken by an inexplicable thunder or explosion-like sound in his head to see sparks coming from the stove in his room. In the third dream, he finds a great dictionary and an anthology of ancient Latin poets on his bedside table. In the latter book, he reads a verse that begins, "What path shall I follow in life?" Descartes concluded from these visions that the pursuit of science would prove to be, for him, the pursuit of true wisdom and a central part of his life's work 

Contributions to Mathematics and Physics- 

Descartes' main contribution to the field of Mathematics & Physics were his analytical geometry as well as his theories of vortices respectively. Analytical geometry was no more the application of algebra to geometry. Descartes explains this concept in his book, La Geometrie, published in the year 1637. 

Descartes believed that human efforts were better directed towards the discovery of mechanistic causes of things. Descartes contribution to the field of Physics has made itself evident in the fact that Isaac Newton's first law of motion is based on the principle set forth by Descartes.  

  

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)