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Descartes’ Dualism and the Principle of the Nonidentity of Discernables

Reaction Paper Instructions:

1. Explain Descartes’ dualism in your own words.
2. Give two arguments in support of dualism.
3. What is the Principle of the Nonidentity of Discernables (Leibniz’s Law), and how is it used to support dualism?
4. Dualism has a problem explaining how the mind and the body interact. Explain this problem fully.
5. Some people claim to have found physical evidence for the existence of the soul. Duncan McDougall, for example, placed dying people on a very precise scale and found that they lost between ¾ oz. and 1½ oz. at the moment of death. Does this prove the existence of a Cartesian soul (Descartes’ conception of the mind/soul)? Why or why not?
6. Dualists such as Descartes claim that material objects cannot have the property of consciousness. But since we are clearly conscious beings, we cannot be only material objects. That is, there is a part of us (we can call it the mind) that is non-physical, that thinks, that has consciousness, and is what makes us, us.
What do you think of this claim and why? If you think dualism is false, what alternative account of what our mind is can you give?

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Philosophy Question Set
Question 1
Dualism is a concept that claims that there are two kinds of substance. One of the matters is an indispensable element; however, it is physical. The other substance is a fundamental element, although it is non-physical. These two substances can productively interact even though they are not identical.
Question 2
The first argument is dualism's claim that the body and brain are two different entities. The variance between the two entities is that the body is tangible, and the brain is non-tangible; however, both the brain and the body interact.
Religious bodies commonly identify individuals as souls. This means that a soul and a body are two different elements whereby the soul is a non-physical element and the body a physical element; however, they can interact effectively, just like the mind does with the body.
Question 3
The Principle of the Non-identity of Discernables are arguments that try to influence that the body and the mind are two diss...
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