Brianna Austin
Prof. Drain
PHI 1000
Spring 2018
In comparing Hobbes and Descartes, each of these philosopher's have different viewpoints on the nature of human beings. On one side, we have Hobbes who is a monistic materialist, who believed in a material soul. As a result of his metaphysical position, Hobbes shows that reality can be broken down into indivisible bits of matter in motion. On the other hand, Descartes who is a dualist believed in an immaterial soul. Descartes claims that the true inner core of a human is their immaterial soul which is the center of our cognition. Without divine knowledge, neither of these viewpoints can be proven. Descartes metaphysical position contradicts with Hobbes metaphysical position from the moment he identified as a dualist because Hobbes does not believe that mind and body are completely separate.
Descartes believes that it is the mind that thinks, not the body. Dualism is the belief that there are two kinds of substance that make up a person: material body and an immaterial soul. The aspect body is what is referred to as an extension because it is a material object able to extend out in both infinite time and space. The aspect of the mind is thought, that does not have an un-extended substance and cannot be measured. In Meditation 1, Descartes begins his argument for dualism by stating that he cannot doubt that he has a mind but he can doubt that he has a body—arguing that the body and mind are not the same thing. If we define the mind as the part of us that reasons, then we cannot doubt that the mind does not exist because doubting the mind itself, proves that it exists. The dualistic approach allows room for religion to have a place in this viewpoint because, according to dualist, when the body dies the soul will continue to exist even though the body has passed. So, if the mind and body are not the same thing then dualist can conclude that the mind has some sort of free will. If our mind goes off elsewhere once our bodies have passed, then it is not one of our body functions that we have full control over because those that we do have control over do not function once the body is gone. Descartes viewpoint as a dualist inform his epistemology. Because we are capable of doubting the body’s senses and experiences, the mind and body cannot be the same thing. Since our senses can be doubted, Descartes believed we do not need sensations to exist for us to process knowledge. There are many examples where our sense seems to deceive what we are actually looking at—for example, when it is really hot outside and you are able to see waves in the distance. What we see and experience may be things we create as our own delusions.
In his arguments, Descartes spends a lot of time thinking about how we are able to control our thoughts but not necessarily our bodies. For example, you may control what you think and what you perceive, but you will never be able to directly control your body getting sick from a disease. He goes on further to state that each mind has a privileged owner but the body does not. You control your mind and everything that runs through it but you cannot control your body in this way—so the two must be completely separate. Others can observe my body but no one can directly observe my mind.
As a rationalist, Descartes claim that there are numerous ways in which knowledge is gained apart from sense experience. One thing Descartes does not touch upon is how the mind and body interact. Descartes’ dualist viewpoint produced no solid explanation for how the immaterial mind interacts with the material body. Descartes strongly believes that we cannot trust our senses which directly affects what we perceive in the physical world. To Descartes, the physical world must not be trusted and although he builds up a great explanation for the nature of human beings, there is a lot of grey area and unanswered questions for me to fully believe in this viewpoint.
Unlike Descartes, Hobbes believed that both the mind and body are material, making them one. In Hobbes approach, he believed that in order for us to understand one another, we first need to understand what we are made of, which is matter. Hobbes disagrees with Descartes ideas on free will and an uncontrolled mind because we would not be able to study societies if people are controlled by something that cannot be studied. Unlike Descartes, Hobbes is an empiricist who believes that all knowledge comes from sensation. To Hobbes, our mind is just matter made up of a collection of sensations. Our bodies are just going through the motions as if it was a machine—and the motion from these various objects, like organs, create the motion in our mind. To Hobbes, cognition is simply matter in motion. The mind can be broken down into a smaller state to reconstruct the way we think.
Hobbes describes sense as the method of which humans perceive things. A single thought is nothing more than matter and motion. Sense always has some sort of memory attached to it because our organs absorb the movements of external bodies acting on them. Imagination is decaying sense—after the sensation has been removed, the memory is similar to imagination, just imagination is conceived from two different aspects. Since both the mind and body are created by matter, all knowledge comes from sensation because materialist do not believe there is a separation between the mind and body. Once the body passes away the mind does, as well because there is no proof, besides speculation, that shows of an existing mind post-life. The advantage to this viewpoint is that there are explanations of how the mind and body correlate with one another. Since the mind is matter, our human actions are predetermined by nerves in the brain.
Hobbes viewpoint contradicts the ideas of Descartes of the immaterial soul. Let’s talk about the process of creating a human. Two physical human beings reproduce and pass on a cell from each of them. These cells then fuse together and this starts a reaction of the cell dividing and continues as a fetus comes to be and then once born grows to be an adult. At what point in this process did this human acquire their soul? Descartes leaves these questioned unanswered while Hobbes does not need this divine influence to describe our mind. There is no empirical data that shows when and where the soul would come to existence.
Although both viewpoints have their flaws, Hobbes materialist positions are more comfortable to process than Descartes dualist position. I have an easier time agreeing with Hobbes viewpoint because it does not leave space for the free will and religion. Since I am a non-religious person, it is easier for me to understand Hobbes point of view because he leaves no room for religious beliefs. Instead of the mind being taken elsewhere, it just passes away alongside the body.