On Descartes’ Thought Of "Unity Of Mind And Body"

As the pioneer of modern philosophy,Descartes not only established a rationalist philosophy with "I think" as its core,but also left many valuable questions for future generations,among which his idea of dualism has been widely discussed in the academic sector.Descartes first established the distinction between mind and body through the argument from doubt and the argument from conceivability,which led to the dualism of mind and body.On the one hand,Descartes sought the unquestionable Archimedean point through universal doubt: the "self" is a purely thinking thing,the existence of the body is questionable,and there is a distinction between mind and body;on the other hand,he guaranteed that what is clearly conceivable is possible by the omnipotence and divinity of God,and that we can clearly conceive of the mind If we can clearly conceive of the mind as being able to exist apart from the body,then it is possible for the mind to exist apart from the body.However,from the very beginning of its existence,mind-body dualism has faced a difficulty arising from the theory itself,namely,the difficulty of unifying mind and body,which is reflected in the difficulty of combining different entities and the difficulty of combining different essences:these two different entities are independent of each other,the mind can exist apart from the body and the body can exist apart from the soul,mind and body are real distinctions,and the essential property of the mind is thought,while the essential property of the object is extension.The essential property of the mind is thought,while the essential property of the object is extensiveness,and their essential properties are completely different.Ontologically,mind and body have a real distinction,and epistemologically,we cannot understand two things that are completely separate from each other as "one",and thus the "unity of mind and body" has certain difficulties.Descartes also tried to solve this problem,and he addressed the unity of mind and body from three perspectives: the primordial concept,the analogy of gravity,and the physiological perspectives of animal essence and pineal gland.However,these three approaches have their own shortcomings,and Descartes’ mind-body problem remains unsolved and continues into contemporary times.Today’s philosophers of mind continue to explore Descartes’ idea of the unity of mind and body,exploring human mental activity and mind-brain interactions in depth and attempting to unravel this proposition from the perspectives of neurophysiology,cognitive science,and artificial intelligence.Although philosophers of mind have now abandoned Descartes’ mind-body dualism,it is still the main theoretical basis for exploring the nature of life and the human-brain relationship.The text is divided into four parts: the first part,the problem,focuses on the causes of the "mind-body unity" problem and the difficulties faced by the "mind-body" unity;the second part,the problem,focuses on Descartes’ own three solutions to the "mind-body" unity problem.In the second part,the problem is solved,mainly by Descartes’ three solutions to the "mind-body" problem,and this paper examines their significance by demonstrating the rationality of these three solutions.The fourth part,looking into the future,examines contemporary philosophers of mind’s solutions to Descartes’ "mind-body unity" problem and reviews them.The paper examines two paths by which contemporary philosophers of mind have addressed Descartes’ problem of "mind-body unity," the physicalist construct and the psychological construct,and reveals the importance of Descartes’ mind-body problem in the philosophy of mind community.