Mind and Soul

As has been previously argued, if the Meditations were truthful, its setting would be Descartes at a desk, writing the book.  Now, granting him that in the process of expressing himself, he could somehow, at the same time, carry out the detachment of his 'Mind' from the hand wielding a pen, and maintain that separation through various cogitations, e. g. proving the existence of God, re-embodiment, via the pineal gland, would re-attach that Mind immediately to not his senses, but to his motile Body, in which case the governing mental principle is 'I act, therefore I am.  Though while that formulation might have redirected subsequent Philosophy from the predominance of Epistemology, it is consistent with the tradition that precedes it.  For, Cartesian 'Mind' is a variation of the Platonist-Aristotelian-Medieval 'Soul', which, in each of those systems is an principle of Animation, and not merely one of Cogitation.  So, whatever Descartes' ambition for his 'I' is, at least part of it needs to include an explanation of how it initiates Motility.