A-Level Soul, Mind and Body Scholars

A-Level Philosophy wider scholarly views

Richard Swinburne on Soul, Mind and Body

-the mind and body are distinct substances capable of independent existence, but both make up human beings

Keith Ward on Soul, Mind and Body

-Supports Descartes,

-explains Dualism using analogy of water. Hydrogen and Oxygen may be separate things but together they make water (H2O), explains how mind and body are “inextricably confused and intermingled to form one thing.”

John Stuart Mill on Soul, Mind and Body

-Property Dualism- suggests one substance with two properties (physical and mental)

-Did not see a mental substance separate from the body but he did see the mind as having a ‘higher order’ of properties and hence we cannot explain acts of will, intentionality or consciousness by physical laws alone.

-Mind and body are not separate ‘things but properties or aspects of the human organism.

John Cottingham on Soul, Mind and Body

-challenges readings of Descartes as a Dualist and argues that instead we are made up of mind, body and spirit.

-If we are only made of two, passions and emotions cannot straightforwardly be put into either category

Daniel Dennett on Soul, Mind and Body

-Rejects Behaviourism, argues Skinner oversimplifies human consciousness as he assumes what applies to an animal will also apply to a human

-More to human consciousness than something explicable as a material cause-and-effect

B. F. Skinner on Soul, Mind and Body

-Behaviourist (type of materialist which sees human thoughts as learned behaviours)

-Believes what we consider mental events are learned behaviours and the idea of a separate mental state is a radical misunderstanding e.g.  animals learn behaviours

Richard Dawkins on Soul, Mind and Body

-Materialist, rejects the notion of the disembodies soul from Plato and Descartes as he finds no empirical evidence

-Makes distinction between Soul One and Soul Two. Soul One is the separate substance which Dawkins rejects as primitive superstition. Soul Two is feeling and imagination and rooted in the body

Elizabeth Anscombe on Soul, Mind and Body

-A description of bodily actions describes how my body is working but not why (example of pointing)

-The soul needs the body, and she argues that ‘this bodily act is an act of man qua spirit’ or the act of a human as a whole

John Hick on Soul, Mind and Body

-Opposed Platonic view of the soul, agreed with Aquinas that ‘My soul is not me’ or soft materialism

-we are bodies, but our bodies have a spiritual dimension (no mind without matter)

Anthony Kenny on Soul, Mind and Body

-states that Aristotle is unclear on what happens to the soul and attempts to move between dualism and materialism

Peter Geach on Soul, Mind and Body

-seeing a process is linked to the body and experienced through senses

Gilbert Ryle on Soul, Mind and Body

-Uses term ‘Ghost in the Machine’ towards Descartes concept of the mind

-States Descartes makes a ‘category error’ in assuming mind and matter are of the same logical type (he assumes causes or sensations must either be physical or mental, not both)

Rene Descartes on Soul, Mind and Body

-Substance dualist, ‘I think therefore I am’

-Natural division between body and soul, mind as the pilot of the body and the body itself as a mechanism, mind and body are “inextricably confused and intermingled to form one thing.”

-The Pineal Gland is where there is a link between soul and body

Aquinas on Soul, Mind and Body

-The soul is the first principle of life in living things

-Necessary for the body, the soul and the body could be separated, but if they were, this would be unnatural and improper.

Aristotle on Soul, Mind and Body

-The body is animated by the soul which gives it life (Soul is formal cause of body)

-The Soul has three elements (Vegetative Soul, appetitive soul and intellectual soul)

Plato on Soul, Mind and Body

-Dualist, uses Chariot Analogy (Mortal and immortal horse), Soul exists in Realm of the Good

-Soul seeks enlightenment and can be transferred from one body to another but never broken

-The body is the Prison of the Soul (body is weak due to its desires)