The Second Cartesian Error: Inability to bridge the gap between physical and mental

Descartes’ basic position in the Passions of the Soul is that the emotions are cognitive because they are activities of the soul or mind. One of his problems is distinguishing between other abilities or activities that could seem cognitive, like sensations and perceptions, which to him are not cognitive because they are activities of the body; they are always either focused on the body or objects outside the body.

After all, he thinks, any time you sense something, it’s either your body you sense, or some other object in the world. But you don’t sense your mind or your thoughts. He thinks the same goes for perceptions. In fact, in his earlier book, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes said perception was ‘non cognitive’, because it provided little more than basic ‘shapes’ for the soul to interpret. However, he does change this in view in quite important ways in Passions of the Soul, and it will seriously affect his conclusions regarding the emotions.

The physical aspect

On Descartes’ account emotions happen in the soul, and therefore are “psychic events”. However, he also explains that they have a physical basis. Though the details of his physical account are now hopelessly wrong, the general idea was pretty interesting and we need to have an idea of how it works to see how he gets in trouble reconciling the physical and mental aspects of emotion.

Descartes explains that emotions are caused and continued by chemicals, which he calls spirits, coursing through the body. These spirits can literally cause the soul to move by flowing to and moving the pineal gland, where he thinks the soul sits in the body. The soul feels the pineal gland move, and these chemicals and movements are also how the soul is presented with images and ‘shapes’, for example, of a bear. If the soul determines a particular shape or set of shapes to be frightful, it excites the soul into a state of apprehension. This is not itself an emotion, such as fear, but the soul needs to be in apprehension for it to develop an emotion.

The soul will develop an actual emotion based on three factors, any one of which can be the determining factor in what specific emotion develops:

 

Interested? Read the rest at my dissertation blog!