An Analysis of Descartes's Philosophy, Cognito Ergo Sum

Traditional metaphysics (philosophy term meaning belief system about reality, particularly what's beyond physics) leads us to believe that the mind is the most basic facet of a person. Those with some philosophical background will remember Descartes' "Cogito Ergo Sum"-I think therefore I am—and his subsequent declaration that mind and body are split and that mind is the more important of the two because you are your mind. Your body is a vessel for the mind. It's called mind-body dualism or Cartesian dualism if you want to get technical.

It's also the metaphysical understanding of reality orthodox Christians hold. (God gives you a soul, which animates your body and when you die you go to Heaven as pure soul.) And dualism managed to get mixed up in science and life, so much so that its specters still haunt us today. In fact, just ask anyone, "How do you understand what a thing means?" If they don't scoff or say something snide, they'll give you Descartes' answer: your mind makes a judgment and tells you what it means by connecting it to your memories.

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I'm here to convince you to consider a different understanding of reality. (If just five people would take this seriously for just a day, it'd make me so happy-even if they went back to dualism!) Following Maurice Merleau-Ponty (highly underrated French philosopher), my basic argument is that perception is more basic than your mind. Perception is a place where your mind and body meet the world.

I completely agree: do not take my word for it.

Think about it with me, though. If Descartes and people on the street are right, when a person encounters something, their mind determines what it means. And this helpfully explains hallucinations, dreams, mistakes, etc. But, how does the mind determine the meaning if the perception itself lacks meaning? Either we fully create the meaning (i.e. we could actually be solipsists) or the perception itself doesn't lack meaning and the mind somehow has a mechanism for decoding the meaning in the perception enough to link it to our memories. Merleau-Ponty argues that both are misguided-the meaning itself is contained in the perception because perception is more basic than mind or body.