XLVIII explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Mind-Body Dualism

  Descartes distinguishes between thinking substance (mind) and extended substance (body), while also acknowledging their union in human experience.

• Reason and Method

  The chapter exemplifies Descartes' methodical classification of all objects of knowledge into clear categories.

Characters to notice

• Narrator

  The narrator presents the classification of all objects of knowledge into things and eternal truths.

• René Descartes

  Descartes articulates the division of things into intellectual and material substances, and acknowledges the mind-body union.

Key passages

• “Whatever objects fall under our knowledge we consider either as things or the affections of things, or as eternal truths possessing no existence beyond our thought.”

  Everything we know is either a thing (or its properties) or an eternal truth that only exists in our mind.

  Descartes establishes the fundamental division of all knowable objects.

• “I do not, however, recognise more than two highest kinds (summa genera) of things; the first of intellectual things, or such as have the power of thinking, including mind or thinking substance and its properties; the second, of material things, embracing extended substance, or body and its properties.”

  I acknowledge only two ultimate categories of things: thinking substances (minds) and extended substances (bodies).

  This is a clear statement of Cartesian dualism.

• “There are, however, besides these, certain things of which we have an internal experience that ought not to be referred either to the mind of itself, or to the body alone, but to the close and intimate union between them, as will hereafter be shown in its place.”

  Some experiences, like hunger, emotions, and sensations, arise from the union of mind and body, not from either alone.

  Descartes acknowledges phenomena that require the mind-body union, anticipating later discussions.