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Single Idea 13307
[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
]
Full Idea
Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is.
Gist of Idea
If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul
Source
Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088)
Book Ref
Seneca: 'Letters from a Stoic (Selections)', ed/tr. Campbell,Robin [Penguin 1969], p.154
A Reaction
This is Descartes's non-spatial argument, which I take to be one of the four main props to his mind-body dualism. As always, it is expressed with beautiful concision by Seneca.
The
22 ideas
with the same theme
[mind and matter are two quite different substances]:
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3519
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Man uses his body, so must be separate from it
[Anon (Plat), by Maslin]
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1710
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Emotion involves the body, thinking uses the mind, imagination hovers between them
[Aristotle]
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13307
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If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul
[Seneca]
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21809
|
Our soul has the same ideal nature as the oldest god, and is honourable above the body
[Plotinus]
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21825
|
The soul is outside of all of space, and has no connection to the bodily order
[Plotinus]
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18458
|
The soul is bound to matter by the force of its own disposition
[Porphyry]
|
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22105
|
The human intellectual soul is an incorporeal, subsistent principle
[Aquinas]
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24028
|
The force by which we know things is spiritual, and quite distinct from the body
[Descartes]
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3608
|
I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence
[Descartes]
|
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3613
|
Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs
[Descartes]
|
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2276
|
The mind is a non-extended thing which thinks
[Descartes]
|
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2298
|
Mind is not extended, unlike the body
[Descartes]
|
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3423
|
Descartes is a substance AND property dualist
[Descartes, by Kim]
|
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2303
|
The mind is utterly indivisible
[Descartes]
|
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5011
|
There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance
[Descartes]
|
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19409
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Soul represents body, but soul remains unchanged, while body continuously changes
[Leibniz]
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5585
|
Soul and body connect physically, or by harmony, or by assistance
[Kant]
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22039
|
Geist is distinct from nature, not as a substance, but because of its normativity
[Hegel, by Pinkard]
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14802
|
Physical and psychical laws of mind are either independent, or derived in one or other direction
[Peirce]
|
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2620
|
Dualism is a category mistake
[Ryle]
|
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4069
|
Descartes did not think of minds as made of a substance, because they are not divisible
[Crane]
|
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8289
|
The idea that Cartesian souls are made of some ghostly 'immaterial' stuff is quite unwarranted
[Lowe]
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