5HLQWHUSUHWLQJ'HVFDUWHVRQWKH1RWLRQRIWKH8QLRQ

RI0LQGDQG%RG\
-DQHW%URXJKWRQ5XWK0DWWHUQ

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 16, Number 1, January

1978, pp. 23-32 (Article)

3XEOLVKHGE\-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV
DOI: 10.1353/hph.2008.0683

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hph/summary/v016/16.1broughton.html

Access provided by University of Florida Libraries (22 Mar 2016 15:25 GMT)
 Reinterpreting Descartes
on the Notion of
the Union of Mind and Body
JANET BROUGHTON
RUTH MATTERN

What does IDescartesJ understand, 1 ask, by the union

of the mind and the body? What clear and distinct
conception has he got of thought in most intimate
connection with a certain particle of extended matter.'?
Truly 1 should like him to explain his union through its
proximate cause. But he had so distinct a conception of
mind being distinct from body, that he could not assign
any particular cause of the union between the two, or of
the mind itself, but was obliged to have recourse to the
cause of the whole universe, that is to God.
Spinoza, Ethics, Preface to Part V

!. DESCARTES'S VIEW OF MIND-BODY INTERACTION is obscure; but his notion of

mind-body union, which is supposed to shed light on interaction, seems instead to
cast a shadow of its own. In 1643, Princess Elizabeth asked Descartes how mind,
thinking and unextended, could interact with body, extended and unthinking; in his
response Descartes appeals to the " p r i m i t i v e " notion of the union of mind and
body. Difficult as it is to see how this notion of union could illuminate interaction, it
is even more difficult to see how there could be such a primitive notion at all.
Descartes says that a primitive notion is conceptually independent of other notions.
But how can the notion of the union of mind and body be independent of the notion
of mind and the notion of body?
In what follows we will offer a new interpretation of the crucial primitive-notions
passage in Descartes's letter to Elizabeth, an interpretation designed to show how
the notion of the union of mind and body could be primitive. Although we will not
go on to explore the connection between union and interaction, we hope in this
paper to prepare the way for such an investigation.
A helpful framework for posing and clarifying the problem we wish to solve is
provided by Daisie Radner's provocative article "Descartes' Notion of the Union of
Mind and B o d y . " ' In section II we will distinguish several versions of Radner's

We wish to thank Professor Margaret D. Wilson and Ellen Pearlman, of Princeton University, for
their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper; and we are grateful, too, for help from the
Journal referees.
Journal o f the tlistory o f Philosophy 9 (1971): 159-170.

[23]
24 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

c o n t e n t i o n t h a t for D e s c a r t e s u n i o n c a n n o t be p r i m i t i v e . 2 In sections I I I t h r o u g h V
we will r e i n t e r p r e t the p r i m i t i v e - n o t i o n s p a s s a g e in the c o r r e s p o n d e n c e with Eliza-
b e t h in such a w a y that we can d e f e n d Descartes a g a i n s t R a d n e r ' s criticisms. W e will
try to show in section VI w h y t h a t p a s s a g e m i g h t e n g e n d e r m i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n in the
first place. F i n a l l y , in section V I I we will sketch the larger t a s k to which R a d n e r ' s
p a p e r a n d ours are o n l y p r e l i m i n a r i e s .

II. W h y does R a d n e r t h i n k t h a t m i n d - b o d y u n i o n is p r o b l e m a t i c for Descartes?

She first f o r m u l a t e s the d i f f i c u l t y with this question: " I f t w o s u b s t a n c e s have differ-
ent n a t u r e s , h o w can there be a u n i o n o f these substances which is itself a simple
n a t u r e ? ''3 This q u e s t i o n suggests t h a t R a d n e r is a t t r i b u t i n g to Descartes the p r o b -
lematic claim that

(a) S o m e p a r t i c u l a r c o m p o u n d e n t i t i e s - - t h e h u m a n beings c o m p o s e d o f
minds and bodies--are simple natures.

T h e s u p p o s i t i o n that R a d n e r is in fact a t t r i b u t i n g this p o s i t i o n to Descartes is sup-

p o r t e d b y her later r e m a r k t h a t

the unity which is formed from two things which are in themselves complete is a unity of com-
position . . . . the unity of mind and body is a unity of composition. But it is also, as we have
seen, a simple nature. Can something which is a unity of composition also be a simple nature,
unanalysable into components? It seems not. 4

T h e r e is, h o w e v e r , a n o t h e r w a y to r e a d these two q u o t a t i o n s f r o m R a d n e r . She

s o m e t i m e s treats s i m p l e n a t u r e s as essences o r a t t r i b u t e s , as w h e n she writes t h a t " a
simple n a t u r e is an essence which we ' b e h o l d as p r i m a r y a n d existing p e r se'. ''5 So
p e r h a p s she is also criticizing D e s c a r t e s for h o l d i n g t h a t

(b) S o m e p a r t i c u l a r c o m p o u n d e n t i t i e s - - t h e h u m a n beings c o m p o s e d o f
m i n d s a n d b o d i e s - - h a v e simple n a t u r e s .

Yet a n o t h e r criticism o f D e s c a r t e s seems to be implicit in the f o l l o w i n g p a s s a g e

from Radner:

As a primary notion, the notion of the union of mind and body must be 'so clear and so
distinct that it cannot be analysed by the mind into others more distinctly known'. That is, it is
to be the idea of a simple nature. A simple nature is one which is not susceptible of reductive
analysis. We cannot break it up into components which are known more clearly and distinctly
than it is known itself . . . . Since the union of mind and body is classified among the simple
natures, it cannot be analysed into thought, extension, and the interrelationships between
them. 6

2 Although a large part of Radner's article criticizes Descartes's analogies to the mind-body case, we
will not deal with them here. Radner discusses the analogies in service of her contention that the mind and
body cannot form the sort of union Descartes envisions, a contention irrelevant to our purposes. What
concerns us are Radner's arguments about the possibility of a primitive notion of union.
3 Ibid., p. 164.
4 Ibid., p. 168; emphasis ours.
s Ibid., p. 163.
6 Ibid., pp. 163-164.
 DESCARTES ON MIND AND BODY 25

H e r e it seems t h a t R a d n e r t h i n k s Descartes m u s t e n c o u n t e r d i f f i c u l t y in c l a i m i n g
that

(c) B e c a u s e the n o t i o n o f the u n i o n o f m i n d a n d b o d y Js simple, t h e

n o t i o n o f m i n d a n d the n o t i o n o f b o d y c a n n o t be a n a l y z e d o u t o f it.

W e shall t a k e u p claims (a), (b), a n d (c) in turn; a n d we h o p e to show t h a t

Descartes can be d e f e n d e d a g a i n s t the criticism each generates. W e shall r e i n t e r p r e t
the crucial p a s s a g e in D e s c a r t e s ' s letter to E l i z a b e t h so that it need n o t be r e a d as im-
p l y i n g either claim (a) o r c l a i m (c); a n d we shall suggest that (b) generates a p r o b l e m
o n l y if (c) does.

III. R a d n e r m a y well be correct in calling the belief in (a) i n c o h e r e n t . W e need

not, however, a t t r i b u t e this p r o b l e m a t i c claim to Descartes, for the p a s s a g e f r o m the
letter to E l i z a b e t h f r o m which R a d n e r derives (a) can be i n t e r p r e t e d quite differ-
ently. Descartes says,

First I observe that there are in us certain primitive notions which are as it were models on
which all our other knowledge is patterned. There are very few such notions. First, there are
the most general ones, such as being, number, and duration, which apply to everything we can
conceive. Then, as regards body in particular, we have only the notion of extension which en-
tails the notions of shape and motion; and as regards soul in particular we have only the no-
tion of thought, which includes the conceptions of the intellect and the i~cl~na~ons o f the w~]k
Finally, as regards soul and body together, we have only the notion of their union, on which
depends our notion of the soul's power to move the body, and the body's power to act on the
soul and cause sensations and passions. 7

N o t i c e the c o m p a n y in which Descartes places the n o t i o n o f the u n i o n o f m i n d a n d

b o d y . First, there are the g e n e r a l p r i m i t i v e n o t i o n s " s u c h as being, n u m b e r a n d
d u r a t i o n , which a p p l y to everything we can c o n c e i v e " ; a n d besides these, there are
t h r e e o t h e r p r i m i t i v e n o t i o n s : the n o t i o n s o f extension, o f t h o u g h t , a n d o f the u n i o n
o f m i n d a n d b o d y . This list l o o k s f a m i l i a r to a r e a d e r o f the Principles, which
Descartes was writing a r o u n d the t i m e o f this 1643 letter. In the Principles, being,
n u m b e r , d u r a t i o n , extension, a n d t h o u g h t are all i d e n t i f i e d as attributes. ~ By " a t -
t r i b u t e " D e s c a r t e s m e a n s a n i n v a r i a n t p r o p e r t y o f a thing. ~ T h e fact thai the n o t i o n
o f the u n i o n o f m i n d a n d b o d y is listed a m o n g the c o n c e p t s o f being, n u m b e r , d u r a -
tion, a n d so o n in the p a s s a g e to E l i z a b e t h indicates t h a t the n o t i o n o f the u n i o n o f
m i n d a n d b o d y is a n o t i o n o f an attribute. This a t t r i b u t e applies to " s o u l a n d b o d y
t o g e t h e r , " j u s t as being, n u m b e r , a n d d u r a t i o n a p p l y to e v e r y t h i n g c o n c e i v a b l e , a n d
j u s t as e x t e n s i o n applies to b o d y , a n d t h o u g h t to m i n d . ' ~

7 Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, 12 vols. (Paris, 1897-1910), 111:665; hereafter
cited as AT., Descartes: Philosophical Letters, ed. A. Kenny (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 138;
hereafter cited as K. Throughout this paper, we use the Kenny translation of Descartes's letters.
8 AT, VIII:25-27; The Philosophical Works of Descartes ed. E. Haldane and G. Ross, 2 vols. (Cam-
bridge: The University Press, 1969), I : 241-242; hereafter cited as HR. Unless otherwise noted, we use the
Haldane and Ross translation of Descartes's works.
9 AT, V111:26; HR, I:241-242.

~ A comment about mind-body union written by Descartes in the previous year also supports the view
that he thinks of such union as an attribute: "The union which joins a human body and soul to each other
is not inessential to a human being, but essential, since a man without it is not a man" (AT, III : 508; K,
p. 130).
26 HISTORY OF P H I L O S O P H Y

So, from the claim that the union of mind and body is simple we should not infer
that (a). The phrase " t h e union of mind and b o d y " in the correspondence with
Elizabeth refers only to an attribute and not to particular entities.

IV. So far we have left open the question whether Descartes might have held (b),
when we take "simple natures" to refer to a property, not to a particular entity. But
Radner has certainly failed to give us any reason for thinking that this view is prob-
lematic. Why could Descartes not hold that compound entities have simple natures?
Radner's dissatisfaction with (b) must derive from some other source. It may come
simply from her failure to distinguish between entities and attributes; or, more
plausibly, she may be reasoning this way: because the human being is compounded
out of a mind and a body, its attribute, mind-body union, must likewise be com-
pounded out of the attribute of mind and the attribute of body. But a compounded
attribute could not be simple.
This line of criticism, however, is directed not at (b) but at (c). If (b) does pose a
problem for the simplicity of mind-body union, then this difficulty is more explicitly
formulated as (c). So let us now concentrate on the issue whether Descartes could
consistently treat the concept of mind-body union as a simple notion.

V. Radner assumes that in calling the notion of mind-body union primitive,

Descartes is simply adding another item to the Rules list of simples. There may be
some similarity between what Descartes meant by "primitive" in 1643 and what he
meant by "simple from the viewpoint of the understanding" in 1628; but this fifteen-
year interval saw such development in Descartes's philosophical views that we should
simply look at the 1643 correspondence itself for the meaning of "primitive."
Descartes makes three claims about primitive notions in his letters to Elizabeth.
First, these notions are innate; "it is in our own soul that we must look for thesesim-
ple notions. It possesses them all by nature . . . . "~' Second, other concepts depend
on them. Descartes writes that "there are in us certain primitive notions which are as
it were models on which all our other knowledge is patterned," and he goes on to say
that these concepts " e n t a i l " other concepts. ,2 Third, these notions do not depend on
any other notions. Descartes states that these concepts are " c o m m e des originaux"
or "primitive." '~ Each of them can only be understood by itself; " w e do wrong if
we try to explain one of these notions by another, for since they are primitive no-
tions, each of them can only be understood by itself."'4 Descartes also says that each
of these primitive notions is " k n o w n in its proper manner and not by comparison
with any other. ''~S It is the third claim, about the conceptual independence of
primitive notions, that is especially troublesome. ~6 For the concept of mind-body

" AT, 111:666; K, p. 139.

,2 AT, III:664; K, p. 138.
,3 Ibid.
,4 AT, 1II:666; K, p. 138.
' ~ A T , 111:691; K, p. 140.
" The claim about innateness m a y also pose a problem, because Descartes seems to say both that the
union of mind and body is most clearly known by the senses (AT, 111:691-692; K, p. 141) and that
nothing can be known by the senses clearly and distinctly (e.g., Med. IIL As we will try to show, however,
it is the notion o f substantial union, not mind-body union, that is primitive and thus innate. So the
distinction we will make m a y provide a way o f avoiding the problem posed by the innateness claim, as
well as that posed by the conceptual independence claim.
 D E S C A R T E S ON M I N D A N D BODY 27

union does seem to depend on both the concept of mind and the concept of body. It
is plausible to suppose that one cannot understand the concept of mind-body union
if one does not understand both the concept of mind and the concept of body; the
concept of mind-body union, it seems, cannot " o n l y be understood by itself." Thus
Radner is correct in claiming that it may be difficult for Descartes to hold (c).
In order to see whether this is an insoluble problem for Descartes, we need first to
understand better the reference to union in the 1643 letter. Only a year earlier
Descartes wrote to Regius that " t h e mind and the body are united in a real and
substantial m a n n e r " ; 17 and he said, " W e affirm that a h u m a n being is made up of
body and s o u l . . , by a true substantial union."ls We think these texts provide an
important clue to Descartes's intentions in the 1643 letters to Elizabeth. The remarks
to Regius are part of Descartes's prolonged attempt to clarify his position on mind-
body union in response to objections raised by academics at Utrecht. The controver-
sy between Descartes and these academics was a heated one which concerned
Descartes deeply for several years; we can see that he is still preoccupied with it at
the time of his correspondence with Elizabeth, for he breaks o f f his second letter to
her with the news that he has been s u m m o n e d to defend his views before the magis-
trates of Utrecht. And he persists in connecting mind-body union and substantial
union in a letter to Mesland in the year following the correspondence with Eliza-
beth.19 So we feel justified in supposing that when Descartes wrote the letters to
Elizabeth, he thought of mind-body union as related to substantial union. In what
follows we will try to clarify what he thought this relation to be.
During the course of our explication of Descartes's notion of substantial union we
hope to show (1) that the notion of substantial union is for Descartes conceptually
broader than the notion of mind-body union, but (2) that in fact the notion of
substantial union has for Descartes the same extension as the notion of mind-body
union. Then we will show that (1) allows us to extricate Descartes from difficulty
over (c), the problem about the conceptual independence of the notion of the union
of mind and body. We will also try to show, by way of (2), why Descartes formulates
his list of primitive notions in a way that initially seems to generate problems for the
independence of the notion of union.
The substantial union of several parts into a whole is only one kind of composi-
tion, for there are some c o m p o u n d entities whose parts are not substantially united.
But we are not interested in what all composite entities have in common; rather, we
are concerned with what characterizes substantially united compounds. As the term
"substantial u n i o n " suggests, substantial union has something to do with being a
substance. It is most plausible to suppose that substantial union is union resulting in
a c o m p o u n d substance: the whole is a substance. 2~In other words, only a composite
entity whose parts are substantially united is a c o m p o u n d substance.
What, according to Descartes, makes something a substance? Let us turn again to

,7 AT, III:493; K, p. 127; emphasis ours.

,8 AT, III:508; K, p. 130; emphasis ours.
~gAT, IV:166; K, p. 157.
20 It is possible but unlikely that substantially united entities are simply those c o m p o u n d s with
substances as parts. We find no evidence supporting this alternative interpretation; and comments like
Descartes's remark that the mind and the body are "realiter et substantialiter"united (AT, III:493; K,
p. 127) tell against it. Here it is clear that substantiality modifies neither the mind alone nor the body alone,
but rather the mind and the body united.
28 H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y

the Principles, where he writes that " b y substance, we can understand nothing else
than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing in order to exist. ''2'
Descartes adds that, strictly speaking, only God is a substance in this sense. In a
weaker sense, however, "created s u b s t a n c e s . . , may be conceived under this com-
m o n concept; for they are things which need only the concurrence of God in order to
exist. ''22 Which things depend only on God for their existence? Clearly a property
cannot qualify as a substance according to this definition, because a property is
modally dependent for its being on the subject in which it inheres. 23 Nor can this
definition of substance apply to something causally dependent for its existence on
something else in the world.
Now Descartes sometimes says that everything depends at every m o m e n t solely on
God as an efficient cause. But in most contexts he says that m a n y things in the world
do causally depend on one another for existence. So we can distinguish things that
are substances f r o m those that are not by seeing whether their existence depends on
other things in the world. According to this criterion, minds and res extensa are
substances, because they depend for their existence not on other things in the world
but on God alone. And according to this criterion, composite entities whose exis-
tence depends in part on something else in the world are not substances; only com-
posite entities whose existence depends on God alone are c o m p o u n d substances.
We have seen that only composite entities whose parts are substantially united are
c o m p o u n d substances. Now we see that compound substances are those composites
dependent for their existence on God alone. We must emphasize that when it is a
c o m p o u n d that is a substance, it is the existence of the thing qua c o m p o u n d that
depends on God alone. Since a substantially united entity is a substance, it depends
on God alone for its unity. 24 And, as we mentioned earlier, there are probably some
conditions for being a union that all compounds, including substantially united
compounds, must meet. But if a compound satisfies general conditions for being a
compound thing, it will have substantially united parts if and only if their unity
depends causally on God alone.
If this account of substantial union is correct, then the notion of substantial union
is conceptually broader than the notion of mind-body union. The basic conditions
for substantial unity are independent of the specific nature of the united parts. This
fact gives us a way to resolve the prima facie inconsistency generated by claim (c).
This claim seemed to conflict with the conceptual dependence of the notion of mind-
body union on the notions of mind and of body. But if we suppose that in the
primitive-notions passage Descartes was really talking not about the concept of
mind-body union but rather about the more general concept of substantial union,
then claim (c) generates no obvious inconsistency. ~s

2, AT, VIII:24; H R , I, 239.

22 AT, VIII:24-25; HR, I, 240.
23 AT, II1:429; K, p. l l 6 .
24 Since it is a kind of causal independence that distinguishes substantially united c o m p o u n d s from
other compounds, their logical dependence on their parts need not concern us in this paper. A c o m p o u n d
qua c o m p o u n d needs to have parts, and one might think that a particular c o m p o u n d would not be the
individual that it is without the particular parts it has (see R. M. Chisholm, " P a r t s as Essential to
W h o l e s , " Review o f Metaphysics 26 [1973]:581-603); but this sort o f logical dependence is irrelevant
here.
2s Of course, there remains the very general difficulty of how a notion that can be explicated at all can
be said to he simple or conceptually independent of any other concepts. But this difficulty, which lies at
 D E S C A R T E S ON M I N D A N D BODY 29

Vl. The principle of charity alone would incline us to the view that Descartes is
indeed talking in this passage about the concept of substantial union and not about
the concept of mind-body union. However, even the most charitable reader will
wonder at this point why Descartes refers specifically in this context to mind and
body at all. For he does say that "as regards soul and body together, we have only
the notion of their union. ''26 Furthermore, whenever he talks about substantial
union, he talks about the unity of mind and body that forms a human being. So in
support of our interpretation of the primitive-notions passage, which takes " u n i o n "
to mean substantial union, we must offer an explanation of the fact that Descartes
mentions mind and body at all.
The primitive-notions passage itself points the way here. In it, Descartes lists not
only the primitive notions themselves but also the things to which they apply: being,
number, and duration " a p p l y to everything we can conceive"; extension applies to
bodies; thought, to soul. Obviously, he is talking about the extension of the concept
of union when he refers to "soul and body together." But could he really be sug-
gesting that the broad concept o f substantial union has so narrow an extension that
it applies only to mind-body compounds? Does Descartes really think that only
human beings depend for their unity on God alone? ~7 We think that this is exactly
what he means to suggest. As we will show, independent philosophical considera-
tions force him to limit the application of the concept of substantial union to human
beings. Specifically, the scope of Descartes's mechanism, his division of the world
into two kinds o f substances, and his views about the nature of living nonhuman
creatures, eliminate all but human beings from the category of substantially united
compounds.
First, if Descartes does hold that the only substantially united compounds are
human beings, then he must at least be denying that any compound composed ex-
clusively of corporeal parts is substantially united. According to our explication of
substantial union, this denial amounts to a denial that purely corporeal compounds
depend for their unity on God alone. This makes good sense for the purely corporeal
compounds that are artifacts; a compound dependent on some finite creature's voli-
tion for its existence clearly is causally dependent on something besides God.
But what about the case of natural compounds? Descartes thinks that all natural
compounds are brought about by purely corporeal causes, entirely governed by
mechanical laws:

I must here make it clear that I recognize no kind of 'matter' in corporeal objects except that
'matter' susceptible of every sort of division, shape, and motion, which geometers call quanti-
ty, and which they presuppose as the subject-matter of their proofs. Further, the only proper-
ties I am considering in it are these division, shapes and motions; and about them I assume on-
ly what can be derived in a self-evident way from indubitably true axioms so that it can be

the heart of Descartes's doctrine of simple concepts, is beyond the scope of the interpretive task we are
trying to accomplish in this paper. The simplicity of the other simple notions is subject to this same
broader difficulty. We are trying to solvejust the special problem arising from the apparent dependence
of the concept of mind-body union on the concepts of mind and of body,
26AT, 111:665; K, p. 138; emphasis ours.
2r It is important to keep in mind that one may interpret Descartes as holding that mind-body union
depends on God alone, without interpreting him as an occasionalist. To interpret him as an occasionalist,
one would need to show that mind-bodyinteractions as well as mind-bodyunion depend on God alone.
30 H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y

counted as a mathematical proof. All naturalphenomena, as I shall show, can be explained in

this way . . . . 28

So, any natural c o m p o u n d depends for its being qua c o m p o u n d on something

besides God, namely, on the states of other matter in motion as governed by natural
laws. Natural compounds are merely temporary configurations of matter generated
by the blind workings of the mechanical world. 29
That Descartes thinks natural compounds are not genuine composite substances is
supported by a passage in the correspondence with Regius that we mentioned earlier.
Descartes writes to Regius that natural compounds have parts that are merely pres-
ent and proximate to one another; and he explicitly contrasts this sort of c o m p o u n d
with the genuine substance formed by the mind and body in union:

We affirm that a human being is made up of body and soul, not by the mere presence or prox-
imity of one to the other, but by a true substantial union. For this there is, indeed, required a
natural disposition of the body and the appropriate configuration of its parts; but the union
differs from position and shape and other purely corporeal modes, because it reaches the in-
corporeal soul as well as the body. ~~

Now that we have ruled out purely corporeal compounds as instances of

substantial union, we see that at least one part of a substantially united c o m p o u n d
must be incorporeal21 Granting this, there still remain three kinds of cases, besides
that of h u m a n beings, which we must consider.
First, we might wonder whether several minds could be substantially united. But
Descartes apparently never even entertained the possibility that there could be such a
substantial union. If he had considered the possibility, he might have ruled it out on
the grounds that several minds cannot be united at all, and a fortiori cannot be
substantially united.
Second, we must consider the case of compounds having at least one part that is
incorporeal and nonmental. But Descartes thought that there are only two kinds of
simple substances, corporeal and thinking. Therefore, a nonthinking incorporeal
part would be impossible.
Finally, we must ask whether a body could be substantially united with either a
vegetative soul or an animal soul. Descartes of course denied that there are vegeta-
tive souls; 32 if he had elaborated a theory of botany, no doubt it would have been

28 AT, VIII : 78-79; Descartes: Philosophical Writings, ed. E. A n s c o m b e and P. T. Geach (New York:
T h o m a s Nelson and Sons, 1954), p. 221, emphasis ours.
29 It is, of course, true for Descartes that there are psycho-physical laws governing the interaction of a
mind and the body with which it is united. Similarly, mechanical laws govern the interaction a m o n g the
parts o f a purely physical c o m p o u n d . But psycho-physical laws do not govern the uniting o f a mind with a
body; mechanical laws do govern the c o m p o u n d i n g o f physical parts.
30 AT, III:508; K, p. 130.
~1 Radner says that a substantial union between a corporeal substance and an incorporeal one would be
impossible ("Descartes' N o t i o n , " p. 164). But here we see that for Descartes a substantially united
c o m p o u n d must have at least one incorporeal part.
32 For example, in a letter to Regius (AT, II1:371-372; K, pp. 102-103).
 DESCARTES ON MIND AND BODY 31

straightforwardly mechanistic. As for animal souls, he seems either to deny that

animals have souls or to deny that w e h a v e any way of knowing whether they have
souls or not. In either case he thoughl hc could give an entirely mechanislic account
o f animals' behavior. ~
Thus we see that independent parts of Descartes's philosophy limit the extension
of the concept of substantial union to human beings. No other compound entity de-
pends on God alone for its unity. And that is why no other compound entity has
substantially united parts.
Now we can see in detail how to deal with the prima facie problem generated by
the fact that Descartes includes on his list o f primitive notions the notion o f the
union enjoyed by mind and body. The problem was that primitive notions are said
by him to be conceptually independent of other notions; but the notion of the union
of mind and body certainly seems conceptually dependent on the notions of mind
and of body. We have shown, however, that we can read Descartes as including in
his list of primitive notions, not the notion of mind-body union, but the notion of
substantial anion; and this concept is independent o f the determinate nature o f the
united parts.
Although it is conceivable that something could be subsumed under the Cartesian
concept of substantial union without being human, other aspects of Descartes's
philosophy rule out all nonhuman candidates. Once we see how narrow the actual
extension of the concept of substantial union is for Descartes, we need have no
special qualms about adopting the more charitable reading o f the primitive-notions
passage. Descartes's reference in that passage to "soul and body together" gives the
extension of the concept of substantial union, just as "everything we can conceive"
gives the extension of the primitive notions of being, number, and duration, and just
as " b o d y " gives the extension of the primitive notion of extension and " s o u l " of the
primitive notion of thoughl.

VII. We have tried to replace Radner's reading of the primitive-notions passage

with a more precise one that frees Descartes from some gratuitous difficulties. Our
interpretation allows us now to bring into sharper focus a problem surveyed by Rad-
ner. For our explication of the notion of substantial union does not serve as an
answer to the question of what Descartes lhought the connection between union and
interaction to be.
That he thinks there is some connection is clear, as the letters to Elizabeth attest.
In those letters and in other passages 3' where Descartes relates substantial union to
interaction, he appears to be concerned with as many as six topics: the brute fact of
our experience of sensations, volitions, and so on; the fact that mind and body
interact; the fact that they are united; the nature o f their union; the nature o f their
interaction; and the correct analysis of the experience of sensations, volitions, and
so on. Paired in various ways, these topics may stand as evidence to hypothesis, as
explanans to explanandum, or as analysans to analysandum; some may even
coincide.

J~ For example, AT, 1:413-414; K, p. 36; and AT, Vl1:230-231; blR, 11: 10,t; and AT, X1:200-202.
" For example, AT, Ill :493; K, pp. 127-128; and AT, IV :603-604; K, p. 210; and AT, VIII: 317; HR,
1:291; and AT, VII:219; HR, 11:97; and HR, [[: 131-132.
32 H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y

Untangling this web of relationships is a task to which this article can be only a
necessary preliminary. Nonetheless, our article does suggest some starting points for
untangling that web. For example, what we have said shows that one need not
interpret the notion of substantial union in terms o f the interaction of parts. Such a
suggestion would help us do justice to Descartes's claim that the notion of union
is--in some as yet unspecified way--able to explain the fact or the nature of mind-
body interaction.
So far as our analysis has gone in this paper, it exonerates Descartes from
Radner's charge of incoherence. But by broadening the field of inquiry, one might
uncover other reasons for endorsing Radner's conclusion that "the efforts of
Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz and others to overcome the Cartesian mind-body
problem are, even if not successful, at least not misplaced. ''3s

Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania

.~s "Descartes' Notion," p. 170.