Plato and Descartes on Self Analysis | Assignment | Answers

Running Head: PLATO AND DESCARTES ON SELF ANALYSIS
Plato and Descartes on Self Analysis
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PLATO AND DESCARTES ON SELF ANALYSIS
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Question 1:Briefly describe their two positions on these matters, with emphasis on
the roles these accounts play in their larger respective projects and arguments. Please pay
special attention to places where the two thinkers might agree, and where they might
disagree.
The philosophy of Plato and Descartes have emphasized mainly on the different relations
that exist between the mind and the body. The similarities between the two philosophers lie in
the fact that both of them emphasize on the incorporeal aspect of life whether it is the mind of
the individual or his soul. Both the philosopher stresses on the dualism character of the
individuals and the immortality and the incorporeal character of the individuals where there will
be a difference between the individuals.
Plato’s Phaedo and the Descartes‘s Meditations focus on the different versions of the
mind and soul. Plato in this context will consistently speak about the soul (psuche) but Descartes
does not possess a similar view point. Regarding the soul. Descartes claims that he believes in
the basic notion that the soul of any person lies in the concept of immortality. Descartes also
used the church’s doctrine in this respect. The church will be stressing the meaning of the soul is
the human body minus its physical structure in the form of its mortal body (Descartes 2018).
Descartes believed in the immortality aspect of the mind of the human and the intellectual level
that has been the ever form of the additional level of stress (Alexei,2019).
Descartes has also identified the fact that regarding the relationship between the mind and
soul of any human. It is up to the individual regarding his wishes to assert the fact that the mind
can also exist without the mortal form of body. Descartes has however maintained the fact that
according to his distinct ideas, neither of these nature will contain nor refer the fact to the others

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in the group. The individual will himself try to perceive in the most distinct manner regarding the
consciousness of one’s mind.
Descartes has also concluded the fact that the mind and body in certain respects
are the two separable units in the context of the initial wholesale that is associated with the real
form of existence in the body of any individual.
Descartes has never intended to show that the ideas are contained within himself or of the
mind, it mainly refers to the human mind that can act as a separate entity from the body of that
same individual. Descartes has broken out in the deception concept of the systematic doubt that
arises from the cruel form of God’s existence and the method that will rightfully shape the
human mind (Fiorentino, 2017). Descartes therefore concluded on the immediate source of
appearances and the infinity nature of God whereas Plato stressed on the severability of the mind
and the soul. Descartes has also faded away from the pure mathematics and the other different
thoughts if God. Descartes and Plato have also differences regarding their thoughts on God and
on the measure of the pure finite mind of any individual (Holmes, 2017).
b) Which, if either, of the two positions do you agree with more? Please provide clear
reasons for your opinion, with reference to the philosophical positions each account is
meant to support. (If you agree with neither thinker on the matter, please defend that
position with reference to the same material.)
If we compare Plato’s argument with the Meditations of Descartes on the context of
whether we can separate the soul from the body. Plato in his argument of Phaedo, present san
inter alia for instance the different kind of intellectual form of exercise that will separate the