The selections from Descartes we will discuss address two topics, the difference between people and animals and the relation between the mind and body. The selections from the Discourse and the letters (pp. 19-25) that we will disucss Mon. focus on the first, and the selections from the Meditations to be discussed Wed. focus on the second.

Descartes’ Discourse on Method, originally a sort of preface to a group of his scientific works, is partly autobiographical, and the selection we’ll discuss (pp. 19-21) comes from a part of it where he describes a work that he never published in which he’d offered a hypothetical description of the natural world. The bulk of this selection, as well as the two selections from letters that follow it (pp. 21-25), concern his view of the difference between animals and people.

Descartes recognized two sorts of substance, ordinary material substance and a “thinking substance” that constituted a “mind” or “rational soul.” Unlike Aristotle, Descartes insisted that animals and our bodies were essentially machines. You should look for two ways Descartes thinks we can distinguish people, who possess his thinking substance, from machines and animals, which don’t, and think whether you agree.