Almost there, almost here

So, my first "exam" is tomorrow at six. The others follow on Tuesday and Wednesday at the same time. Then (thank the postulated one Substance) they'll all be over for another year. Obviously, there's not much point in planning to much revision after today...a long session on the day is not going to leave me any energy for an evening in an exam room. Since it is not just my body but also my mind, or as I would prefer, the mind/body, that is going to be present, there is no point in running the race before the off.

So, today I'll be looking at mind and body in Spinoza and Descartes (again) plus trying to get my head round (last chance!) the question of whether perceptual experiences have content. Don't worry (to those who read my blog(s) out of a misplaced sense of duty (although I'm really grateful, honest i am)), I am not going to meander around these fascinating topics online.

But rather, let me leave the last word (until Thursday at least) to one, Monsieur Descartes -- so often maligned by New Age-ers and their ilk, as the originator of all that is evil in the doctrine of mind-body dualism:

Nature also teaches me by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and so on that I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it , so that I and the body form a unit. If this were not so , I who am nothing but a thinking thing, would not feel pain when the body was hurt, but would perceive the damage purely by the intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight if anything in his ship is broken. Similarly, when the body needed food or drink, I should have an explicit understanding of the fact, instead of having confused sensations of hunger and thirst. For the sensations of hunger, thirst, pain and so on are nothing but confused modes of thinking which arise from the union and, as it were, intermingling of the mind with the body.

(Sixth Meditation AT VII 80-1; CSM II 56)