High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The mind- body dichotomy is the view that "mental" phenomena are, in some respects, "non-physical" (distinct from the body). In a religious sense, it refers to the separation of body and soul (Paul, Letter to the Romans 7:25; 8:10). The mind-body dichotomy is the starting point of Dualism, and became conceptualized in the form known to the modern Western world in Ren Descartes' philosophy, though it also surfaced in pre-Aristotelian concepts and in Avicennian philosophy.