Was a dualist, saw a clear distinction between soul and body in Discourse and Meditations.
Set out to know what we could prove with certainty. Proposed Hyperbolic doubt, Rejecting everything that had even a small about of doubt to its trueness. This method allowed him to establish what endured and was stable. He concluded that the only certainty was his reasoning existed, as he could not be decieved about that. 'Cognito ergo sum'. Basically our senses could be decieved so we cant know anything but our abilty to reason is real
But our knowledge of the body is based off sense, so we cannot prove it exists with certainty. this told him that our Mind and Body must be different substances, we cannot doubt the existence of the mind but we can the body
Also suggested the body, or physical self, could be divided into parts while the mind, spiritual self, could not. Suggested the pineal gland, a small gland in the very center of the brain, was the 'seat of the soul'. As we have doubles of everything else, lungs, kidneys, hemispehres etc but only one of that and in the very center it must be the link between material body and immaterial soul.
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