PHIL 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Impulsion
14 Nov 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Elisabeth asks descarte to explain how the soul can determine the spirits of the body to produce voluntary actions . Determinations of motion requires an impulsion and therefore, require either contact or extension. But these cannot apply in the case of mental determination . Descartes writes that these explanations depends on the discussion of three primitive notions . By this he means distinguishing between the ideas of: bodies, minds, and the union of mind and body. He claims that each one of these notions cannot be explained except through itself. For example, explaining color to a blind person. Elisabeth responds by pointing out that descartes hasn"t explained things yet. She writes: it would be easier for me to conceded matter and extension to the soul, than the capacity of moving a mody and of being moved, to an immaterial being.
