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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Descartes' own correspondence with Princess Elisabeth reveals he could not coherently explain psychophysical causation using mechanical principles alone.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Acknowledging a problem's difficulty is not equivalent to failing to explain it; Descartes offered the pineal gland hypothesis despite its limitations.
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    • 2.Descartes distinguished psychophysical causation from purely mechanical causation, so requiring mechanical explanation alone misrepresents his actual theory.
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    • 3.Modern physics has abandoned classical mechanical principles anyway, so evaluating Descartes by standards he couldn't meet proves little about his coherence.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Descartes' letters to Elisabeth explicitly acknowledge difficulty explaining how immaterial mind causally influences material body through mechanical laws.
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    • 2.Mechanical causation requires spatial contact and physical force, but immaterial substances cannot satisfy these conditions by definition.
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    • 3.Descartes never provided a rigorous mechanical model of mind-body interaction, only vague references to the pineal gland as a supposed locus.
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