Critically evaluate Rene Descartes's claim that the mind is not a part Essay

Critically evaluate Rene Descartes's claim that the mind is not a part of the physical world. Could modern science help settl - Essay Example This essay critically evaluates Descartes’s claim that the mind is not a part of the physical world. It also includes a brief analysis of the response of modern science to this classical assumption. A Cartesian Perspective of the Mind Descartes believes that the tendency to associate sensible features with bodies is a mistake developed during childhood. During these early years individuals acquire the belief that the physical world is strongly connected to their sensations, or that it has the types of attributes it seems to possess in sense perception, both sensible and automatic. But indeed, he argues, bodies possess only automatic attributes, such as motion, size, and shape, and people’s perception of sensible attributes are brought about by formation of these attributes (Wilson, 2003). Challenging the simple perception of the physical world is a major objective of the Meditations. The movement against faith in the senses, and specifically against the belief that bodi es are the same as sensations, is an important instrument in realising this objective, because Descartes believes the simple understanding of the physical world is mostly rooted in the notion that bodies are the same as people’s sensations (Morton, 2010). Descartes started his pursuit of truth by using his newly developed method of inquiry. His method used intense scepticism—all ideas that are doubtful were disregarded, including ancient wisdom taught by scholasticism. More critically, Descartes also doubted ideas coming from the senses because â€Å"from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once† (Wilson, 2003, p. 37). Evidently this argument encouraged questioning much of the established knowledge, and eliminating them as potential groundwork of thought. All ideas of the physical world might be untrue, since knowledge of them arises from the untrustworthy senses. Moreover , the presence of the physical body was questioned based on the same justification (Engel & Soldan, 2007, p. 334): â€Å"I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things†. Descartes afterward thought that in order to doubt, he should exist as a ‘thinking’ being: â€Å"I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind† (Christofidou, 2013, p. 41). And then he defines a ‘thinking’ being as â€Å"a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions† (Morton, 2010, p. 81). This series of arguments led him to his concluding point: the mind is not part of the physical w

Economics of Organisations TAKE HOME EXAM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Economics of Organisations TAKE HOME EXAM - Essay Example It is vital in today's world that every researcher possesses models with imperfect information. The aforementioned theory can be applied everywhere from underdeveloped countries to developed economies. Founding this theory were George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz. They won quite a prestigious award for their work in asymmetrical markets in 2001. These questions exemplify familiar - but seemingly different - phenomena, each of which has posed a challenge to economic theory. This year's Laureates proposed a common explanation and extended the theory when they augmented the theory with the realistic assumption of asymmetric information: agents on one side of the market have much better information than those on the other side. Borrowers know more than the lender about their repayment prospects; the seller knows more than buyers about the quality of his car; the CEO and the board know more than the shareholders about the profitability of the firm; policyholders know more than the insurance company about their accident risk; and tenants know more than the landowner about their work effort and harvesting conditions.More specifically, Akerlof showed that informational asymmetries can give rise to adverse selection on markets. Due to imperfect information on the part of lenders or prospective car buyers, borrowers with weak repayme nt prospects or sellers of low-quality cars crowd out everyone else from the market. Some claim that Aker... Due to imperfect information on the part of lenders or prospective car buyers, borrowers with weak repayment prospects or sellers of low-quality cars crowd out everyone else from the market. (Nobel Prize.org 2009, p. 1) Some claim that Akerlof's essay, "The Market for Lemons" is the ultimate representation of study in economics of information literature. It has both seminal features in that it describes something simple but profound, has a significant number of implications and applications that are widespread in nature. Akerlof starts out by describing a formal analysis-the first of its kind-of markets that suffer from adverse seslection. "He analyses a market for a good where the seller has more information than the buyer regarding the quality of the product. This is exemplified by the market for used cars; "a lemon" - a colloquialism for a defective old car - is now a well-known metaphor in economists' theoretical vocabulary. Akerlof shows that hypothetically, the information problem can either cause an entire market to collapse or contract it into an adverse selection of low-quality products." (Nobel Prize.org 2009, p. 1). Akerlof also points out other information asymmetries. Most of these appear to him in developing countries. For example, in India, in the 1960s, urban lenders chose to charge twice as much interest as those who operated in the larger cities. Another example occurs when Akerlof describes health insurance for the elderly. Yet another is discrimination of certain groups of people in the labour market. "A key insight in his "lemons paper" is that economic agents may have strong incentives to offset the adverse effects of