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Spinoza and The Mind and Body - Papers Online

Spinoza and The Mind and Body

There are many questions still rising about if the mind and body are two different substances or one whole substance. If you believe that the mind and body are separate, then you are a dualist. If the mind and body are one, then you are a monist. The distinction of mind and body is a problem dating back to the advent of modern philosophy. Spinoza believes that the mind and body make up one substance. Only god or Nature is truly substantial; we can exist only as modes, depending for our existence upon the reality of the real being. Since the one infinite substance is the cause of everything, each of us can only be regarded as a tiny cross-section of the whole. I agree with Spinoza ...

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as there is only one substance from which “an infinite number of things follow in infinite ways.” These two quoted propositions don’t suggest that the mind and body are two substances that intermingle and relate through a special gland in the body; rather, there quotations suggest that the mind and body are two modifications of the same substance. In principle, the human mind contains ideas that perfectly represent the parts of the human body. “The ideas of the affections of the human body, in so far as they have reference only to the human mind, are not clear and distinct, but confused.” These affections involve the nature both of the human body and of external bodies. They are modes, where by the parts of the human body and, consequently, the human body as a whole is affected.
For Spinoza, there was no problem of deciding whether sensations were modes of matter or of mind, since a single thing could be both extended and thinking. However, Spinoza still had to ...

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/5/2011 04:16:32 PM
Submitted By: hellbunneh
Category: Philosophy
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 875
Pages: 4

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