Descartes' Concept of The Soul

Descartes’ concept of the soul has been studied by philosophers and thinkers from all over. And rightfully so, because few individuals have exerted a more powerful influence on Western philosophy, psychology, and science like Descartes has. If one were to take the one hundred most important and influential people in the history of Western Culture, Descartes’ name would most certainly make the list.

The person who influenced Descartes the most, would himself most likely make that one hundred most influential people list as well: Plato. Plato believed that what separated humans beings from animals was that we had souls. According to Plato, the reason human beings were capable of kindness, empathy and compassion to one another was because we possessed souls - ‘psyche’ is the Greek word Plato used for soul - ‘psychology’ steams from this same Greek word....

Although Descartes was a philosopher and mathematician for the most part, he was very much interested in physiology and human anatomy. By the time John Locke came into the picture, the word ‘soul’ had been replaced by the word ‘mind’; both Locke and Newton are considered by many authorities to have been two of the most important thinkers of ‘The Enlightenment’ period; Galileo and Descartes are considered by many authorities to have been two of the most important thinkers of ‘The Renaissance’ period....

Descartes thought that people were composed of body and soul. He felt that without souls, human beings were essentially robotic entities with little to no purpose. Picture a typewriter (a noun seldom used these days) sitting on top of a desk - this was Descartes’ concept of what human beings would be like if we didn’t possessed souls. Furthermore, it wasn’t until the time of Locke that people started to understand that we think with our minds instead of our hearts - the heart was another synonym for soul.... Descartes was not the first person to have taken interest with the pineal gland, but he was the first person that researched it to great length calling it “the seat of the soul.” According to Descartes, he believed the pineal gland was separate from other parts of the brain and this caused it to act as an agent of sorts. He thought that because a person cannot have more than one thought at a time, the pineal gland discerned our thought process. Descartes believed that stimuli needed to be united in the human brain before being considered by our soul (pineal gland). Ironically enough, Spinoza (Descartes’ most important detractor....) attacked Descartes by saying that Descartes had always taken a great deal of pride in thorough and extensive research, how then did he come about something as silly as this?... Baruch de Spinoza, was along with Locke and Newton one of the greatest thinkers of The Enlightenment - Spinoza was arguably more religious than Descartes was, yet Spinoza severely criticized Descartes for not having done his homework in researching this idea of where it is that our souls are supposedly located....

Locke was not too convinced with Descartes about where it is that our thought process originates from (although he agreed with Descartes that we think with our minds, he didn't fully agree that the pineal gland had any connections to our souls); Locke thought that everything we humans being knew had to be learned at one given point or another in our lives. The idea that human beings come equipped with a soul from God that is fully operational and ready to take on the world at around age six or so, was something that Locke strongly disagreed with. Locke then decided he was going to find out how it is that our minds actually function. That is to say, how is it that we learn information and accumulate knowledge. Locke was one of the first individuals in history to discard the idea that we think with our soul, instead he felt that our brains/minds was how we think, process, and store any given piece of information....

One of the things which made Descartes exceptional was how he approached concepts and ideas. He was a nitpicking and fastidious researcher and would stop at nothing until he reached a conclusion. Many of Descartes’ followers such as: Locke, Kant, Freud, Jung and Marx were surprised as to how it was that Descartes came about this esoteric concept of the human soul....