ABSTRACT
Three important ideas or schools of thought are named after the great rationalist philosopher, scientist and mathematician Rene Descartes: Cartesian coordinates, Cartesian dualism, and Cartesian skepticism. Cartesian dualism is the view that the mind is a radically different kind of entity from the physical body to which it ‘belongs’. This is a dualism of substance, not just a dualism of attributes. The great irony is that Descartes conspicuously failed to do, or avoided doing, the same thing with the phenomenon of mind. Perhaps Descartes can claim only that we are better acquainted with our minds than we are with our bodies. For mental introspection gives indubitable knowledge-by-acquaintance; whereas we have knowledge of our bodies only through the mind’s exercise of the senses. Descartes likewise considers instead the chain of events terminating in his having the idea of God with all His perfections.
