Key Arguments

• When bodily parts are cut off, nothing of the mind is lost, showing that the mind does not consist of material parts: the amputation of an arm or other member does not diminish the mind.
• The powers of willing, perceiving, conceiving, etc., are not parts of the mind but modes of one and the same whole mind which is entirely present in each of these activities.
• By contrast, every corporeal or extended thing can be mentally divided into parts—however small—revealing its essential divisibility.
• This contrast in divisibility would, even without other arguments, suffice to teach that the human mind or soul is entirely different from the body.

Source Quotes

arm, or any other part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken from my mind; nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving, conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, for it is the same mind that is exercised [all entire] in willing, in perceiving, and in conceiving, etc. But quite the opposite holds in corporeal or extended things; for I cannot imagine any one of them [how small soever it may be], which I cannot easily sunder in thought, and which, therefore, I do not know to be divisible. This would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body, if I had not already been apprised of it on other grounds.

arm, or any other part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken from my mind; nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving, conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, for it is the same mind that is exercised [all entire] in willing, in perceiving, and in conceiving, etc. But quite the opposite holds in corporeal or extended things; for I cannot imagine any one of them [how small soever it may be], which I cannot easily sunder in thought, and which, therefore, I do not know to be divisible. This would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body, if I had not already been apprised of it on other grounds. I remark, in the next place, that the mind does not immediately receive the impression from all the parts of the body, but only from the brain, or perhaps even from one small part of it, viz, that in which the common sense (senses communis) is said to be, which as often as it is affected in the same way gives rise to the same perception in the mind, although meanwhile the other parts of the body may be diversely disposed, as is proved by innumerable experiments, which it is unnecessary here to enumerate.

Key Concepts

• arm, or any other part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken from my mind
• nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving, conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, for it is the same mind that is exercised [all entire] in willing, in perceiving, and in conceiving, etc.
• in corporeal or extended things; for I cannot imagine any one of them [how small soever it may be], which I cannot easily sunder in thought, and which, therefore, I do not know to be divisible
• This would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body

Context

Meditation VI, as Descartes strengthens his argument for the real distinction between mind and body by appealing to the indivisibility of the mind versus the divisibility of body, using examples of amputation and mental faculties.