Using Strawson s Arguments About The Numerical And...

In this essay I am going to argue that I am as sure that I am a physical thing as I am that I am a thinking thing. Firstly I am going to define person and what I mean by Cartesian. Secondly, I am going to use Strawson’s arguments about the numerical and identity problems. Thirdly I am going to show that someone who believes that we our more sure of our mental existence is led to a dilemma. These arguments are to make the point that our minds and bodies are the same thing, because if our minds and bodies are different aspects of the same thing then it makes no sense to be more or less certain of the existence of one or the other. Then I am going to attack the reasons people might have for believing this Cartesian substance dualism.†¦show more content†¦Most of this essay is going to question whether or not it makes sense to think of a person as being made up of two independent things. I am going to argue that a person is irreducible into two parts, thinking thing and b odily thing. Thinking of the two things as separate is like thinking of ‘the surface of a table’ and ‘the wood in the table’ as separate, which is clearly nonsense. If two people can agree on the meaning of tables, surfaces and wood then they must agree that they are the same thing. If mind and body are aspects of the same thing then our certainty of the existence of the thing itself would be the certainty of our existence as both a thinking thing and a physical thing, which would be the same. It does not make sense to be more certain of the existence of one than of the other in this situation. My first point is that the Cartesian runs into the first of two problems. The first occurs because to be a Cartesian one must separate mind and body as things. This is because if mind and body are aspects of the same thing then the Cartesian position is incorrect. The problems are very simply these, how to talk about an individual mind, and how to link this individual mind to a body. Cartesians cannot talk about individual minds unless they do so with reference to individual human beings. This undermines the idea that they are distinct, which is a central tenet of the idea that we can be less certain of our bodily existence