Can the mind exist without the body? Can the body exist without the mind? Surely nowadays there are artificial ways to keep the body alive even if the brain is declared dead. Likewise, the body may be completely immobilized, in a coma, but the mind may still be alive and active. But can the one really exist in its entirety on its own, carrying out its functions as usual and as if still in union with its partner? In his book Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes analyzes the mind and body as two completely distinct and separate entities. Through his analysis, he concludes that the mind does not need the body to exist. Descartes argues that because we are at the most basic, "thinking things," our bodily senses are not necessary for our minds to know what does and does not truly exist in the world. He claims that it is only our minds that think, analyze and determine this. Without them, he says, we couldn't make connections and know what it is. Descartes makes a good point: it is true that without our mind we could not make the crucial connection of perceiving something through our five senses and then deciphering what it is through our thought process. However, is it right for me to say that our senses, and therefore our bodies, carriers of our senses, are irrelevant to our purposes, and that we only need our minds to exist? I believe it isn't. When Descartes argues that our bodies are not necessary to exist and understand the things around us, he is reducing the human being to a mere mind, thus neglecting what it means to be a person. What does it mean to be a person? Maybe we should discuss what is meant by the word “p… in the center of the card… and celebrate his independence without the body. St. Thomas Aquinas provides us with an explanation of the relationship that the mind and body share and, in doing so, gives the human being his personality. Knowing what it means to be a person, we can see that Descartes' dualistic view of the person provides a pleasant topic for discussion, but has no real place in the world to be accepted as truth, since doing so denies human beings of their personhood. Works Cited Thomas Aquinas. "Question 76. The union of body and soul." SUMMA THEOLOGICA: The union of body and soul (Prima Pars, D. 76). Np, nd Web. 7 February 2014. Descartes, René. Discourse on the method; Meditations on first philosophy. HackettPublishing house, press.Vovolis, Thanos. Prosopon.The acoustic mask in Greek tragedy and contemporary theatre. Academia.edu and Web. 6 February. 2014.