Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

Hylomorphism vs. Cartesian Dualism: Exploring the Mind and Body with Thomas Aquinas                      Hylomorphism, a theory proposed by Aristotle and appropriated into Christian philosophy by Thomas Aquinas, entails that entities, including the mind and body, are a combination of matter ( hyle ) and form ( morphe ). Dualism, in contrast to monism, posits a fundamental distinction between mind and body as separate substances. Aristotle’s hylomorphism, on the other hand, emphasizes the unity of form and matter in entities, proposing an interconnected relationship rather than strict separation. So, I began to ponder the differences between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and Cartesian dualism. Cartesian dualism, proposed by René Descartes, posits a strict separation between the mind ( res cogitans ) and the body ( res extensa ). Descartes viewed the mind as non-material and distinct from the mater...

Kantian Idealism and the Quest for Ultimate Reality   I pondered over Kant and his philosophy of transcendental idealism and then contemplated Descartes and discovered they have significant overlap. Kant claimed we cannot know the world in itself i.e. the noumena but only have knowledge of the world as it appears to us i.e. the phenomena. Then I drew a parallel of this idea to Descartes’ radical doubt which claimed that we cannot know if the external world exists or not, but the one thing we have epistemological certainty of is Cogito Ergo Sum or I think therefore I am. The overlap being lack of true knowledge of the external world. Then I thought about how religion can be incorporated. It is explicit in Descartes that the external world is clear through his faith in God through his ontological argument but for Kant such a thing is absurd as he believes philosophizing about God is beyond the scope of what philosophy can accomplish and therefore he rejects cosmological and ontologi...

Descartes' Ontological Argument: From Radical Doubt to the Existence of a Supreme Being      Descartes’ argument is grounded in what is predicated of God. For example, the predicate of existence is derived from idea of a supremely perfect being and such a being must have the predicate of being a necessary existence. Descartes often compares his ontological argument to a geometric demonstration by arguing that necessary existence cannot be excluded from idea of God any more than having three sides can be excluded from the idea of a triangle. Therefore, the existence of God is ‘a priori’ for Descartes, or is axiomatic, or known without experience. It seems like it is a counterfactual dependence, or by definition. For example, if one has a pair of birds, it is by definition that if there is one bird, there must be another to complete the pair. In the same way, if there is a supremely perfect being, it must have the predicate of necessary existence otherwise there would be a ...

                                                                       Wills in the Trinity and Incarnation             How many wills are present in the Trinity? Some claim that there is one will amongst the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while others claim each person has their own will but their wills are necessarily in agreement with each other. One can define personhood in the Trinity as distinct centers of knowledge, love, will, and action in an individual mental substance with intentionality and consciousness. With this definition, it seems to be the case that will is a property of personhood rather than nature. To account for the change in personal identity overtime, it is posited that man has a soul...