René Descartes
French philosopher and mathematician known for mind-body dualism
French philosopher who argued that mind and body are distinct substances and explained much animal and bodily behaviour as mechanism. His dualism set a problem that psychology and neuroscience still discuss.
Why this person matters
Descartes framed the mind-body question that later psychologists argued over, and his account of automatic bodily reactions influenced 19th-century reflex theory. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia pressed him on the weakest point of his view.
Main contributions
Mind-body dualism
In the Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) he argued for substance dualism: mind is an unextended thinking substance and matter is extended. He admitted he had no good answer to how the two interact.
Mechanical account of behaviour
He regarded nonhuman animals as machines without mind or consciousness. He explained much bodily behaviour, such as fear moving the legs, through material processes, including animal spirits, a fine fluid carried through the nerves.
Passions of the Soul
In this 1649 book he treated passions as caused by brain states in the bodily machine, and he named six primitive passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. He also proposed the pineal gland as the link between soul and body.
Context and limits
Princess Elisabeth asked how an unextended mind could act on extended matter, and Descartes conceded he had no good answer; later philosophers treated this interaction problem as central. His view of animals was widely read as denying that they feel pain. The pineal gland proposal rests on a reference article in this record, and the later verdict on it was not checked.
In your introductory course
History and research methods.Appears in history chapters as the source of the mind-body problem and of mechanistic views of the body. Students meet it again in biological psychology and consciousness.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 1.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1628
By the end of this year he had moved to the Netherlands.
- 1637
He published the Discourse on the Method.
- 1641
He published the Meditations on First Philosophy.
- 1649
He published the Passions of the Soul and accepted Queen Christina's invitation to Sweden.
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, René DescartesReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, René DescartesReference work. Reference article inspected.