¿Qué es sentir? Aspectos fenomenológicos de la interacción mente-cuerpo en la “Sexta meditación”

Abstract

In this paper I try to reflect on a forgotten problem among the specialists in Cartesian philosophy. Is it possible to find a phenomenological realm in Cartesian thought in which the problem of sensory perception has new validity and justification judgments? This implies the possibility of valuing the sensory knowledge in a different context, distinct from that of the Cartesian dualism, in which the sensory knowledge is put under suspicion. In order to show that this phenomenological realm exists and that it is propounded by Descartes in the Sixth Meditation, it is first necessary to think about the possibility of re-introducing the substantial interaction between mind and body in a new epistemological explanation framework. The first task is to give up the metaphysical framework which provides the clear and distinct conceptual notion of God, mind, substance, and the accounts used by the mechanical physics to explain the res extensa. The main purpose is to leave the dualist way of understanding and treatment of mind-body interaction, and to pay attention to the phenomenological realm. When Descartes tries to answer the question: what is feeling? the phenomenological realm appears in the Sixth Meditation. To show how this phenomenological realm functions as a justification and validity judgment, I will consider first the definition of the union between mind and body in order to state the union as theoretical framework. Second, I will analyse the phenomenon of pain with the aim of seeing the different ways of treatments of pain as an example of phenomenal experience in the mind-body distinction context, and in the mind-body union context. Finally, I shall propound the central assumptions which constitute the namely “Cartesian science of mind-body union”.