Necessary to Classify

When it comes down to it, it is impossible not to take a Cartesian view of the world. We, as a society of people, need to classify things into categories so that we can better understand them. I think that it goes against human nature to stray from this belief. Latour illustrates this fact ever so clearly in him depiction of the excavation site, with everything laid out to a grid.

So, to not be able to classify something, as in the case with blessed Teresa (even though we do have a name for the term Stigmata) it is frightening to think about. Cartesians need a cause and effect and a box to put something in. When Teresa and others who claim the stigmata is real they are unsure of what box to put this information in. I think that the fear of the unknown is what has driven the world to Cartesian thinking.

That being said, Descartes reasoning that the mind is separate from the body, completely goes against the acts of Blessed Teresa. I am not a religious person (as it seems most of the class is the same as me by reading other blog posts), so the Cartesian in me wants to believe that there is something wrong, that Teresa is doing this to herself, that this is a disease that we have not found the answer to. I need to classify this supernatural act so that I can designate it to its correct "box," so to speak. In addition, even the fact that Robin presented in class about curing warts by THINKING that something has been used to treat it makes it go away. The mind and the body are more connected than ever. It is the Cartesian belief that connects them, otherwise our classification would go out the door.

This is all connected in that the necessity to classify is embedded in our historic roots all the way back to Descartes. His reasoning and process present in the meditations have empowered everyone (well except the crazies) with the mental capacity to map and explain the world. By classify the mind-body dualism as separate entities, we have come to understand a being as a mind inside, but not connected to a body. "Teresa and wart" enthusiasts would dispute this fact, and the shear notion of the idea has caused hot debate over the years. Descartes has given us a way to classify the world and to look at the human being. His words can be best summarized as to say, "I am a thinking thing." Which means that his body is independent of his mind. The dueling debate will never die, but one thing is for certain: the tendency to classify is something that is necessary for human existence, because without it, we ourselves can not even exist.