Edelman (1992: 11):
It is here that the second great figure of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, Descartes, comes to the fore. In his search for a method of thought, he was led to declare for "substance dualism." As I mentioned earlier, according to this view the world consisted of res extensa (extended things) and res cogitans (thinking things). Galilean manipulations work on res extensa, the set of extended things. But res cogitans, the set of thinking things, does not exist properly in time and space; lacking location, not being an extended thing, it cannot fall into the purview of an external observer. Worse still is the problem of interactionism: the mind and the body must communicate. With an uncharacteristic lack of clarity, Descartes declared that the pineal gland was the place where interactions between res cogitans and res extensa occurred.
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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, 'substance dualism' arises from construing experience as things, rather than as processes involving participants.
A thinking thing (res cogitans) is a metaphorical reconstrual of a 'thing thinking', that is, of a senser mediating a cognitive mental process, through which ideas are projected into semiotic existence.
An extended thing (res extensa) is a construal of experience as a phenomenon of a perceptive mental process mediated by a senser.
Descartes' distinction is thus between the medium of a cognitive process (res cogitans) and the range (or agent) of a perceptive process (res extensa), this being a contrast along two dimensions: process type and degree of involvement in the process.
However, contrā Descartes, a thinking thing (res cogitans) is construable as located in time and space, as demonstrated by any clause in which a cognitive mental process is located in time and space, such as Einstein thought so in Bern in 1905. Spatio-temporal location is thus not limited to the phenomena of perceptive mental processes.
On the other hand, although cognitive mental processes are not perceivable phenomena, the behavioural processes that manifest them are, as demonstrated by construals such as they saw him meditating.
A thinking thing (res cogitans) is a metaphorical reconstrual of a 'thing thinking', that is, of a senser mediating a cognitive mental process, through which ideas are projected into semiotic existence.
An extended thing (res extensa) is a construal of experience as a phenomenon of a perceptive mental process mediated by a senser.
Descartes' distinction is thus between the medium of a cognitive process (res cogitans) and the range (or agent) of a perceptive process (res extensa), this being a contrast along two dimensions: process type and degree of involvement in the process.
However, contrā Descartes, a thinking thing (res cogitans) is construable as located in time and space, as demonstrated by any clause in which a cognitive mental process is located in time and space, such as Einstein thought so in Bern in 1905. Spatio-temporal location is thus not limited to the phenomena of perceptive mental processes.
On the other hand, although cognitive mental processes are not perceivable phenomena, the behavioural processes that manifest them are, as demonstrated by construals such as they saw him meditating.
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