PHI 1103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Avicenna, Thought Experiment, Mental Substance
11 Oct 2016
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Descartes believed a distinction existed between reality and appearance. Thought experiment: flying/ floating man argument in the book of the soul or. Image a man full formed, created in a void, with all his limbs not touching. He will have a sense of his own self existence. He will have have no sense of limbs/ organs (body) or any external reality. He will affirm himself, but no awareness of self as distinct from anything else. If you can be aware of the self and not the body, then the self and the body are separate/ can be separated: conceptual separation of the mind and the body. Self-consciousness is not consciousness of the body. Descartes: reality consists of 2 separate substances: thinking substance mind (res cogitans, extended substance- matter (res extensa)
