Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza

Erik Irre

Modern Philosophy

December 16, 1999

Paper 1, Section 2

If these great thinkers (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were to discuss instead the soul's connection to the body, what might each say (both on his own behalf and in response to the other)? Would they find any places where they might agree? If not, why not? (These are, after all, smart guys!)

Though this sort of meeting would strike me as a debate with as furiously disparate and uncompromising ideals as one would find in a meeting of Andrew Weil, Jerry Falwell, and David Duke, I expect that the philosophers would find some surprisingly common ground. Descartes, the Christian outcast, Spinoza, the Jewish outcast, and Leibniz, the creative mathematician all acknowledge that what we know better than anything is the mind. Given this, we can deduce that any knowledge we acquire