It goes without saying that this serious lack of confidence is something right in the core of the problem of modern disruption. We mean man's lack of confidence in the exterior world, as his immediate senses present it to him, and all that subtle distinction between a subjective and an objective reality. However, that cutting up of reality into radically separate parts is not all. The most serious thing is perhaps the systematic depreciation of one part, in favour of the other. It is a continuation, in the Western World, of the Veda tradition: there is an exterior and an interior world, a material and a spiritual world.[1] The interior only can claim to be spiritual, and the spiritual only is of real value.
Is this one-sided spiritualism true to life? That is the great question.
One phase of this schism between man's interior consciousness and his exterior world will be treated in our next chapter. But now we must first make some headway with our original capital problem of dualism. How is it possible for human thought to conceive of a body-soul unity?--We have already mentioned what a terrible dilemma that was to ancient philosophy. To modern philosophy it becomes a still more accentuated problem.
But why do we take this philosophical problem so seriously at all? Is it of such decisive importance to our topic? Our answer must be as follows.
Before philosophy--or whoever is responsible--removes the heavy doubts raised for centuries concerning a natural union and a fundamental oneness of the human body and the human soul, what basis could there ever be--quite logically speaking--for an outlook of true totality in our culture?
Descartes has been mentioned as the founder of modern philosophy. According to him, however, there exist two species of "substances", absolutely independent of each other. On one hand we have the clear idea of ourselves as a thing that thinks and has no extension. On the other hand we have an idea just as clear and distinct of a body, a thing having extension, but not thinking. Thus, on the authority of human consciousness, Descartes bases, not only a radical dualism between a res cogitans and a res extensa, but a dualism just as radical between body and spirit (to Descartes the term "spirit" is applied to the substance in which thought is contained. He regrets that he is not able to find any better and less ambiguous word) (cf. Raisons qui prouvent, Def., VI, Vol. IX, p. 125).
By means of his famous Cogito, Descartes finds that he is essentially a thinking subject, in fact, nothing but that, "c'est-à-dire un esprit, un entendement, une raison".[2]
Here it is worthwhile noticing that he does not define "le moi", or the soul, as a principle of life (as we shall show that the Judeo-Christian tradition does, to mention one typical instance of a non-dualistic anthropology). No, Descartes defines the soul as a principle of thought. The thought is the essence of the soul.
Thought is an attribute that belongs to me: it alone cannot be detached from me.[3]
Thus the soul is essentially thinking. And it is a thing which "needs only itself to exist".[4] In fact, this quality of "not having need of anything but oneself in order to exist", simply becomes the definition of a substance.
However, that thinking substance, through a sort of "inspection de l'esprit", soon discovers the existence of the whole universe--of God first, and then of bodies.
As for the existence of the body, Descartes proves this, "en postulant son existence au nom du principe de causalité pour rendre raison suffisante du contenu de notre pensée", as Etienne Gilson expresses it.[5]
The name generally given to this substance, taking its place beside the thinking substance, is then "la substance étendue", or "la substance corporelle", or simply "la matèrie". The great attribute proper to bodies is, above all, their "etendue". All other properties of a body actually have that extension as their evident presupposition. The corporeal substance is independent of any human existence. Thus it is not even dependent upon our senses.[6]
So, according to Descartes, our human reason clearly distinguishes two things: on one hand there is the extension, on the other the thought. The former constitutes the nature of our bodies, the latter constitutes the nature of our souls. So extension and thought differ totally. "Intellectual acts have no affinity with bodily acts," as Descartes expresses it categorically.[7]
To us, the important conclusion at which Descartes arrives is this: the two "substances" must be conceived as "things complete in themselves".[8] And they become absolutely irreducible and radically heterogeneous. This amounts to saying that he establishes a distinction between body and soul as radical as any dualism can conceive it.
The Discours de la méthode is quite explicit here: in recognizing himself as a spiritual substance, man at the same time has consciousness of an absolute distinction between that soul and his body.[9] Through that "simple" inspection de l'esprit, Descartes satisfies himself that the body is not necessary for his own existence, whereas the thought is necessary--but also entirely sufficient. To him this explains perfectly why he has a much clearer recognition of his soul than of his body. How could that be otherwise, since it is the soul that constitutes his real "moi"?
This identification of the "être de la pensée" with the "être en soi" could not fail to lead Descartes in a very definite direction. His way towards the postulate of an immortal soul is entirely prepared here.
He had, as we remember, found the soul to be of a nature entirely distinct from that of the body. It is a simple and indivisible thing, capable of pure intellection, and entirely sufficient in itself. Descartes thinks his arguments suffice "to show clearly enough that, from the corruption of the body, the death of the soul does not follow". On the contrary, he concludes "that the spirit, or soul of man, as far as can be known by natural philosophy, is immortal".[10]
But here Descartes, of course, like so many other philosophers claiming the immortality of the soul, had to face the great old problem of how there can be a union between soul and body. For Descartes, far from denying any such union, admits that it is necessary. And that "necessary union" was destined to become a terrible stumbling block to the modern systems of philosophy.
Let us admit at once: Descartes's personal attitude towards the dualism of body and soul which he has elaborated, is very different from the attitude of a Plato, for instance. There is certainly no fanatical Manichean desire, either, of setting some miserably suppressed soul to freedom from the dark dungeon of a despicable body. On the contrary, Descartes seems to have been a man of comparatively broad and sober and down-to-earth nature in several respects. For instance in his "Lettre à Elisabeth" of Nov. 3, 1645, we discern the practical citizen of some kind of Renaissance community, as it were--encouraging a fellow citizen not to be too punctilious on certain doctrinary questions. In fact, no one, he admits, has any assurance as regards the exact condition in which his soul will find itself when once separated from the body. So let us keep both feet on the earth. "We must not leave the certain for the uncertain." On the contrary, we should try to be satisfied in this world of ours. That is always possible. At least it is possible--and here follows an assumption which certainly has a far more "philistine" than a rigidly philosophical character--"provided that we know how to use reason." It is rare, indeed, to hear a dualist philosopher using the word raison with a connotation of almost "common sense".
Even quite publicly, and with great emphasis, Descartes points out that the philosophy he teaches is by no means "so barbaric nor so fierce that it rejects the use of passions". "On the contrary", he says, "It is in this sole use that I put all the sweetness and happiness of this life."[11]
This personal attitude of an almost sanguine or cyclothyme humanity, right in the middle of stern Cartesian speculation, may suggest one explanation of the curious fact that the concrete being, the being of living flesh and blood, is still seen to constitute an astonishing part in the metaphysics of that philosopher. In Descartes's life and work there certainly is something besides that cold and all-consuming aspiration towards the theoretical heights of pure essence. That is, indeed, also what Alquie, an eminent student of Descartes, has discovered:
Of the human condition, Descartes did not want to ignore war, travel, duels, love, or study. Thus, the example he offers to Princess Elisabeth is not that of a pure meditator, an ascetic or a cabinet philosopher, but that of a man who spends only "a few hours a day on the thoughts that occupy the imagination", that is to say, science, "very few hours a year on those that occupy the understanding alone", that is to say, metaphysics, and who devotes all the rest of his time "to the relaxation of the senses and the rest of the mind.[12]
However, the Descartes with whom we have to do just now, is the Descartes of metaphysical theories, the Descartes who abstracts and dissects, the Descartes who has already involved himself in a theoretical maze from which there is no practical escape. Thus he has declared clearly enough, for instance: soul and body are things having an infinite abyss between them.
So our question arises: How will that same Descartes explain the fact that this same body and this same soul are still found together? To this one may evidently say that Descartes does not at all show himself so terribly anxious to explain that. To be sure, he does profess his doctrine of a union between body and soul insistently enough, but with astonishingly little detail of explanation. In his later years, it is true, he gave some more study to the subject of man as a concrete being. But this is far from his general habit, or his natural tendency.
As Alquie has remarked, that change of emphasis asserting itself to some degree in the later part of the philosopher's life, was hardly first and foremost the necessary consequence of an internal intellectual evolution.[13] At least some rather accidental events are seen to have played a most important part in it. For instance, there was the intense philosophical curiosity of a princess, which had to be satisfied. (A rare incident disturbing a philosopher's schedule, we should think.) Then there was also the case of some careless statements on the part of his disciple Regius, which had to be corrected. Besides, there were of course quite a lot of objections, from this side and that side, which finally had to be answered.
However, the true and original cause of most of those questions, objections, etc., coming from outside and troubling Descartes's philosophical peace in his old age, is clear enough. It was simply that state of incompletion in which he had once left his philosophy. On the one hand he had admitted the union of the soul and the body. He had also admitted that the soul sets the body in motion. On the other hand--long before that--he had already established the dualism of a "substance pensante" and a "substance etendue". So his royal pen friend, the Princess Elisabeth, had the indiscretion of asking him one day how such a thing as a soul-governed movement of the body can then take place at all. How can the thinking substance--which has no extension in space--really move a substance of spatial extension? For, of course, in order that one thing shall move another thing, there must be some sort of pushing ("pulsion"), mustn't there? But that, in its turn, assumes a touching ("attouchement"). And does not such a "touching" seem rather incompatible with the radical difference in nature which is supposed to exist between the two elements now touching each other?
Descartes answers that there is no touching at all. The soul moves the body in very much the same way as the force of gravitation moves bodies.
Probably the good Princess Elisabeth did not see too clearly how the abyss of dualism between body and soul could be bridged so easily and elegantly. And the successors of Descartes--let it be noted--do not appear to have seen it either. At least, we can see them standing waveringly at the crossroads of a problematic choice: either to draw the full consequences of Descartes's doctrine of a dualism of the substance, or to abandon it altogether.
Malebranche, for instance, declared that the soul must be quite incapable of moving the body. Such an action can be attributed to God only. In his opinion, no other solution can be afforded by Christian philosophy. There must be a general law by which the Creator has regulated the relations between the two heterogeneous substances, thus establishing a correspondence between two entities most unequally yoked together: a human body and a human soul.
In the system of Leibniz similar problems forcibly present themselves. The monad "has no windows". So how can it really be influenced by the exterior? According to Leibniz, the position is clear enough.
And it ought to be problematic enough (for it is the problem which stands out here with a certain "clearness"): the soul simply cannot receive any impressions from the senses. And, vice versa, the soul cannot exert any influence whatsoever on the body. For all the activity of the monad is concentrated around the monad itself, limited to its own internal states.
And, nevertheless, that reciprocity between body and soul is still there. At least any man on the street would certainly swear to the fact that there is some such reciprocal influence between the two. Of course, it might all be just vain appearance. But that appearance, in its turn, would demand some kind of explanation, then, wouldn't it?
Well, to account for it, Leibniz, too, takes his refuge in God: this inexplicable harmony between two radically independent series of phenomena is nothing less than a divine wonder. In the soul everything goes on as if no body had ever existed; and vice versa: in the body everything goes on as if the soul had never existed. But whence, then, that perfect correspondence between them? That is the secret of the great Artisan who has constructed both body and soul. In fact, even in creations pertaining to this earth one may imagine similar relations. And then follows the well-known example of the clever watch-maker making two separate watches. Their mutual relation is that of a most absolute independence, of course. And, nevertheless, they proceed side by side in perfect harmony. They have simply been so wonderfully constructed as to march on in the most irreproachable unison.
So both Malebranche and Leibniz, in order to save their theory of a soul entirely separated from the body, took refuge in an explanation which less sympathetic observers would undoubtedly characterize as a sort of deus ex machina.
In fact, as sympathetic an observer as Charles Werner, in his comparison between Greek and modern philosophies,[14] admits that he is unable to qualify his explanation in any other way. Referring to just the attitudes of Malebranche and Leibniz here, he spontaneously exclaims: "How far their theory is from reality! How far it is from the common sense which Descartes invoked at the beginning of his Discours de la méthode. And how well we understand the protest of Maine de Biran, stating that philosophy has no right to place herself in a state of contradiction to interior experience. That experience, however, teaches us that the soul does move the body!"
Even the monism of a Spinoza, by the way, is shown to fail utterly in re-establishing unity. According to Spinoza, the special extension expresses, just like thought, the essence of God. But right in the midst of this statement he denies every real union between substances. He also denies the reality of an action here. The soul and the body belong to two widely different orders, and therefore there can be no real interaction between them. Each of them is endowed with a perfect spontaneity.
To Spinoza, it is true, thought and extension became two attributes of the substance. But in reality that amounts to admitting two different substances, after all. For the "attribute" expresses the very essence of the substance.
So whatever terms he uses, Spinoza actually admits the thinking substance and the extended substance. Even more than that: he admits as many substances as there are attributes. In other words, unity tends to vanish in the ultimate effect. And in its place there appears just a juxta-position of an infinite number of essences. However, the important fact here is this: the idea of Spinoza becomes that of a parallelism between two series. And the peculiar thing about those two series is this: they never join each other.
One does understand the undertone of regretful astonishment in Werner's words where he sums up this paradox:
Nowhere has dualism presented itself with such rigor as in this philosophy which has tended so strongly towards unity.[15]
However, we should also mention at least something about Descartes's own attitude towards the problem he had so fatefully introduced into modern philosophy; although, as he admits himself, this is a topic on which he has "quasi rien dit".
In his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth he was urged, as it were, to be somewhat more explicit. He starts by repeating his familiar statement. That is, concerning the two ideas--"claires et distinctes"--which we all have, the ideas of two substantial natures: 1) that of the "pensée", and 2) that of the "étendue". But--and this is a remarkable addition--there is even a third substance. And what is that? The third "notion primitive" is simply a notion of the union between the body and the soul!
Where, however, are we to look for the proper place of that "idea of a union between the body and the soul"? Is it in the "entendement", just as for the idea of the thought? No. Is it in the "entendement aide de l"imagination", just as for the "idée de l"étendue"? No, not there either. Notice this: in order to find the idea of a union between body and soul, we are simply asked to place ourselves in the sphere of the senses! For the thing resulting from that union is just a thing of the senses!
The things which belong to the union of the soul and the body are known only obscurely by the understanding alone, nor even by the understanding aided by the imagination; but they are known very clearly by the senses. Why is it that those who never philosophize, and who use only their senses, do not doubt that the soul moves the body, and that the body acts on the soul? But they consider both as one thing, that is to say, they conceive their union, for to conceive the union which is between two things is to conceive them as one.[16]
What a remarkable passage! After such a passage any reader looking for tidbits of refreshingly human wisdom, right in the dry land of philosophical rumination, might be tempted to shout "Bravissimo!"
Here, then, according to Descartes, is the reason why the idea of a union between soul and body defies every effort of speculative analysis. And nevertheless, it is one of those "idées-meres immanentes" springing right out from experience itself.
It is by using only ordinary life and conversations, and by abstaining from meditating and studying things which exercise the imagination, that one learns to conceive the union of soul and body.[17]
What a wonderful vote of confidence to life there is in those words. And, at the same time, what a vote of diffidence to philosophy!
We need not here enter into any further details relative to the conclusive manifestations of a real union of body and soul (for instance, the argument of the "pensées imaginatives" on the one hand, and that of the "passions de l'âme" on the other).
May it suffice to say that what Descartes has essentially applied himself to proving is just that union between the body and the soul as a fait accompli. But how this fact has been accomplished, that is a question remaining just as vague as at the beginning. And, by the way, how could Descartes be expected to show us the proof? With the dualism he had adopted in the first place, it was quite impossible.
One thing here, however, has appeared particularly remarkable to us. That is Descartes's very introduction of a "troisième substance".
He already had his "substance pensante". He also had his "substance étendue". Why, then, did he feel the necessity of adding to those nice abstractions even a third substance, that of the union of the former two? Has he not, by this implicitly admitted that the "third thing" here coming into existence is a thing entirely different from the "two things" with which the philosopher has so far busied himself?
We should think so, indeed. That union of the two "elements" (or "substances") would have to produce something widely different from the "elements" themselves! And the difference would have to be just the difference there has always been between the vain shadow of abstraction and the living truth of concrete reality!
We have had a glimpse of the triumphant stride of dualism in the philosophy of modern times. But, some may object, are there not some signs of a definite change here in our century?
We have no place now for any fruitful discussion of the attitude in ultra-modern philosophy towards egocentricity and dualism. But of course we may at least take time to admit that there has even been a movement in the first decades of our own twentieth century which Arthur O. Lovejoy has found worthy of the name "the Revolt against Dualism". In this interesting work, bearing the same title (1930), he gives an historical and critical survey of a valiant effort made by a generation of contemporary philosophers (particularly of Anglo-Saxon nationalities) to finally do away with that unnatural "bifurcation of nature" which had remained practically unchallenged since it was established so firmly by the "legislators of modern science", way back in the grand siècle of modern philosophy. Here there is suddenly a sort of actual resentment against two well-known forms of dualism. First we may mention the epistemological dualism, the dualism which Locke has proclaimed so confidently saying:
It is evident that the mind knows not things immediately, but by the intervention of the ideas it has of them.
(See some of our objections to epistemological dualism mentioned in Chapter III, 3, pp. 203-208)
But the feeling of revolt was not less directed against the psychophysical dualism which maintains that the empirical reality falls asunder into a world of mind and a world of matter. And now comes the interesting question. What was the eventual outcome of that "wrathful" revolt? Lovejoy's famous and masterly analysis of the whole movement impresses us, more than anything else, as the sad story of a rising monism's last convulsions and final collapse. The author freely admits that what began as a repudiation of dualism, actually ends as an ardent confession of faith in it. Man automatically relapses into the miasma of his favourite confusions.
By the way, it must also be remembered that the first decades of the twentieth century are precisely the time of the triumphantly rising ideas of the Einsteinian theores of relativity. And how are those theories related to the famous aspiration in seventeenth-century philosophy of having a physical universe with which mathematical figures alone are fully sufficient to cope? In fact, both the theory of relativity and the quantum theory seem to move harmoniously in one direction: the "real" physical object is now simply identified with the "scientific" object. On the other hand, the distance between that scientific object, and objects as human beings perceive them, is greater than ever before.
Notes: