Descartes Theory of Substance Dualism Throughout the history of man, philosophers have tried to come up with an explanation of where our minds, or consciousness, came from and how we are able to have a nonphysical characteristic of ourselves. Does our physical brain automaticallygive us nonphysical characteristics like feelings, thoughts, and desires or is theresomething else there, the mind, that interacts with our bodies and makes us feel, think,and desire? Also, is the mind the only nonphysical entity in our universe or do otherentities exist such as ghosts or souls? One man came up with a theory to explain the twodifferent properties in our universe in which he called Dualism. Hopefully with histheory of Substance Dualism, we can come up with some sort of answer to thesequestions.French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) believed two such propertiesexisted in life, the physical and the nonphysical. He broke his theory of Dualism into twoforms: Substance Dualism and Property Dualism. He explained that Substance Dualismis the claim that nonphysical substances exist, and Property Dualism is the claim thatthere are mental properties that are different from physical properties (Barcalow, pg. 70). To put it another way, properties are what make up an object, and substance is what theproperties attach to in making that object. Many philosophers agree that substance is amysterious entity that is hard to explain. Its like a kind of flypaper to which propertiesadhere, but flypaper that has no properties of its own, not even the property of beingsticky (Barcalow, pg. 71). Without substance, there are only properties of an object, notthe object as a whole. Descartes went on to believe that there are two types of substance: physical andmental. A human is composed of many physical properties such as skin, bones, muscles,and organs, but also have nonphysical properties such as thoughts and feelings. Therefore, humans are composed ...
