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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An 11 page research paper that discusses how Baruch Spinoza (late seventeenth century philosopher) addressed the relationship between the mind and body. An examination of Spinoza's philosophy as expressed in his Ethics Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect demonstrates the value of Spinoza's position, which addresses the classic "mind-body" problem. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
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11 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khspinmb.rtf
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how reason could be employed to connect human beings to the "divine law of God," while simultaneously arguing that this law is always subject to interpretation by the "human politics
within which it is expressed" (Levene, 2002, p. 466). An examination of Spinozas philosophy as expressed in his Ethics Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect demonstrates the value of
Spinozas position, which addresses the classic "mind-body" problem. Since the earliest antiquity when philosophers first began to ponder the nature of the universe and humanitys interaction with it, historys great
thinkers have analyzed the relationship between the body and the mind. Are they synonymous, or separate entities? Does mind influence matter or does matter influence mind? Honderich, et al (1995)
defines the "mind-body problem" as the "problem of giving an account of how minds, or mental processes, are related to bodily states and processes" (p. 579). Various answers have been
proposed for this problem. Plato proposed that mind and matter are separate. He argued that matter, in this case the body, is impressed by mind with the ideas that
the mind experiences an ideal world where in resides the ideas that "real and true" as compared to the world that human beings experience (Frost, 1962). Likewise, Rene Descartes
also saw mind and body as two separate substance. The Descartes position on the mind-body problem combines the idea of substance dualism, that is, the dualism of two distinct kinds
of substances, with attribute or property dualism, that is the dualism of mental and physical properties (Honderich, et al, 1995, p. 579). This position presented an equally knotty problem
for philosophers because if body (or matter are different, philosophers questioned how the mind can have an effect upon the body (Frost, 1962). To this debate, seventeenth century philosopher Baruch
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