Descartes was a substance dualist.
There are two kinds of substance:
- Matter, of which the essential property is that it is spatially extended;
- Mind, of which the essential property is that it thinks.
Descartes used a conceivability argument in support of dualism.
The argument goes from the conceivability of my existing without a body to the possibility of my existence without a body, and from there to the conclusion that I am not physical.
A detailed reconstruction of Descartes' argument can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy HERE
A Trilingual HTML Edition of Descartes' Meditations can be found HERE Edited by David B. Manley and Charles S. Taylor, think about these questions.
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