Published: 2020-12-28

Apology of Descartes. About a certain Topos in a Philosophy of Mind

Witold Marzęda

Abstract

The article describes topos of the Cartesian dualism, characteristic of different trends in philosophy of mind. Topos is based on the well-known argument against soul existence: it assumes that if there are soul and body there are causal relations between them. It seems yet to be impossible, because we can think about causes only in a physical sense. So only bodily relations are comprehensible and body cannot cause something that is noncorporal and vice versa.

Author of the article is pointing, that this strict dualism does not belong to Cartesian philosophy on the one hand and this argumentation fails on the other because there is a wide range of relations, (for example, logical or social) that are not physical. So he draws conclusions that cartesian topos in a philosophy of mind is the so-called straw man fallacy. 

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Marzęda, W. (2020). Apology of Descartes. About a certain Topos in a Philosophy of Mind. Silesian Historical and Theological Studies, 51(2), 251–262. https://doi.org/10.31261/SSHT.2018.51.2.01

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Vol. 51 No. 2 (2018)
Published: 2018-12-31


ISSN: 0137-3447
eISSN: 2956-6185

Publisher
Instytut Gość Media/Księgarnia św. Jacka

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