Throughout the Mediations, Descartes argues a type of dualism where the mind and the body are separate entities. It seems for Descartes that one is not their body but solely their mind. He also seems to argue that it is possible to reject one's body and use the mind alone.
However, a few pages into the sixth Meditation, he takes on a point that raises several questions for me. Descartes begins to concede that some of "I" is in the body when discussing sensations. He writes that "clearly these sensations of thirst, hunger, pain, and so on are nothing but certain confused modes of thinking arising from the union and, as it were, the commingling of the mind with the body" (81). It is this "commingling" that gives rise to questions for me.
If it is possible to mix the mind and the body, can Descartes truly argue a dualistic split?
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