Descartes: body-mind problem

In the 17th Century Rene Descartes, in seeking to define the difference between human and non-human animals, argued that humans had minds and bodies and non-human animals had only bodies. This has led to a whole number of so-called mind-body problems, a key one being how the body and the mind relate to each other. Many now consider this to be simply wrong headed.

This dichotomy created, in handlng seemingly intractable problems, two further problems: one can be labelled a root problem and the other a meta-problem. The root problem exists at the individual level, while the meta-problem exists at the societal level.