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It is not the case that Descartes' own substance dualism entails that res cogitans has no spatial properties, making 'seat of the soul' a category error.
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Reasons For
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1.
Descartes himself posits causal interaction at the pineal gland, implying res cogitans must have some locatable point of contact.
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2.
'Seat of the soul' may denote causal nexus rather than literal spatial location, avoiding category error.
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3.
The distinction between 'having spatial properties' and 'being causally localized' remains philosophically coherent and separable.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Descartes defines res cogitans by thought alone, explicitly excluding spatial extension as its defining property.
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2.
If res cogitans had spatial location, it would possess extension, contradicting its definition as non-extended substance.
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3.
Attributing spatial properties to non-spatial entities violates basic logical coherence about category membership.
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