According to many readers of his work, Descartes adhered to Aristotelian epistemology. He viewed the mind as a form of thinking in which physical objects are different, mental qualities are either definite or indefinite, and what seems real is necessarily related to what is possible. Descartes suggested that the object is a separate body, consisting of atoms of an undefined nature. Descartes rejected the monistic doctrine that mind and body are one because, in his opinion, two bodies without mind were not enough to explain the relationship between two people.
Descartes also believed that all entities, whether physical, mental, or both, are bound by «definite and implacable laws». He believed that no entity is completely independent, because the mind is not immune from the laws of the world. Body and mind are inseparable. Descartes believed that one can become aware of something that is not aware of itself. He suggested that one day the conscious mind will become aware of its true nature.
Without direct access to «other minds», we must, based on the behavior of others, conclude that their personal mental life is similar to ours. This conclusion became a kind of epistemic reflex. According to the philosopher John Searle, this has led to one of the most enduring beliefs in modern intellectual life: after all, we are not limited in our consciousness only by ourselves. This may not be the case. We have minds that are capable of performing truly intelligent reasoning and seeing things in truly mysterious ways, and they are probably superior to our own, and they too can be used to understand and improve our lives. They may not be as effective as we are. The only reasonable position on this issue is that our minds are as smart as possible, and in some ways better.
Take intelligence, for example. The fact that we, by and large, have minds equal in general capacity to our own is clearly not a good sign that these minds are similar enough to ours that we can have similar experiences or understand each other. As Searle put it, «To say that we are essentially ’the same animal’ in a certain respect means nothing at all». He has a simple answer to the seemingly outrageous assertion that we can know ourselves in relation to another human being, namely: «As for the assertion that we can know one human being in relation to another human being, I’m quite prepared to say, that such knowledge is absolutely useless».