Soul, mind + body (old).

What is substance dualism?

-There are two aspects of human beings: the mental & physical.

What is materialism?

-The idea that human beings are made up of physical matter alone.

What does Plato believe about the soul?

-The soul is more important than the body.

-Our soul enables us to have knowledge.

-The soul is immortal & cannot be divided.

-The soul is trapped within the body.

-The relationship between body & soul is an imprisonment.

What does Plato believe about the body?

-The body is part of the empirical world & is subject to change, hence it is not a reliable guide to truth.

-Our bodies constantly distract us from our real purpose: philosophical thought.

-Our bodies are a source of endless trouble, by the requirement of food, liable to diseases which overtake us & fill us with fears, lusts, endless foolery which takes us away from the power of thinking.

What 3 aspects are apart of the soul according to Plato?

-Reason = the rational thinking part which seeks to gain knowledge to gain the truth.

-Spirit = helps us feel determined to do the right thing.

-Appetite/desire = the physical needs of our bodies.

What is Plato’s metaphor for his tripartite view of the soul?

-Illustrates his view of the struggle between body & soul with a man driving a chariot.

-Reason is the charioteer who controls the two horses of spirit (emotion) & the physical appetites (desires). When reason is in control, the soul is in harmony.

How does Plato believe souls came from The World of The Forms?

-In the past souls were in the realm of the forms.

-The soul still contains knowledge of the forms before being pulled to earth by the appetites.

-In present, it is incarnated in a body & experiences the tension and conflict between body & soul.

-The soul is liberated from the prison (body) at death.

-In the future the soul is freed from the body or reincarnated into another body or will return to the realm of the Forms.

What are Plato’s Arguments for soul being immortal?

-Every quality comes into being from its opposite. - life comes from death, death comes from life in an endless chain. The soul is part of this cycle of death & rebirth.

-Slave boy with no education can solve a maths problem. The boy uses knowledge he already had from before birth. Therefore we intuitively know something because our souls had lived in WOF & knowledge is merely remembering the ideals we saw in WOF.

How does Plato explain how the soul becomes attached to the body?

-In his work Republic, a story (Myth Of Er) is introduced.

-Er is a soldier killed in battle & has an opportunity to see what happens when a person dies & to come back to life to tell people.

-In the afterlife there are judges who punish & reward people for their deeds on earth.

-The morally good get a chance to be reincarnated & to choose their life, whereas the really bad are forever trapped in an underground world.

-Only the philosophical who choose a better next life are characterised by justice & peace, whereas others choose power which inevitably leads to misery.

What are Plato’s arguments for the body & soul being seperate?

-Argues the body & soul are seperate because we talk of them in different ways.

-EG we say ‘‘I am happy’’ or ‘‘I am thinking’’ in terms of our mental state, but when talking of the body we say ‘‘I have a body’’ like we say ‘‘I have a house’. This suggests we are not our bodies.

What are the strengths of Plato’s view that the body & soul are seperate?

-Religions have developed ideas of a perfect other reality where the good are rewarded. Some Eastern religions support reincarnation.

-Links to modern understandings of personality.

-The myth of Er suggests the good will be rewarded with embodiment or staying in the WOF, giving the motivation to be moral.

-We know what is fair & unfair before we have learned this because our soul recalls the Form of Justice from the WOF.

What are the weaknesses of Plato’s view that the body & soul are seperate?

-His beliefs about the soul rest on an acceptance of a WOF, he hasn’t proved it exists.

-This inner conflict could be explained as emotions or a personality type or upbringing or DNA so that we are more easily swayed by desires or emotions rather than an immaterial soul.

-Intuitively people see themselves as a whole.

-If the appetite part of the soul dies then how can the soul still be a soul, it is only two thirds of a soul.

-If the soul is perfect & unchanging then how can it lose part of itself, this is illogical.

-Hume says its impossible to know whether our souls are seperate from our bodies bc the soul is immaterial, so how can we physically see its seperate.

-The dialogue with the slave boy in ‘Meno’ can be unconvincing as the body is given quite leading questions, so with the right questions it is possible to solve a maths problem with no knowledge.

What does Aristotle believe about the soul?

-The soul is not seperate from the body. (monoism)

-The soul doesn’t survive after death, it isn’t a seperate unity. When the body dies, so does the soul.

What does Aristotle believe about the body and soul?

-The soul is the essence of the body, containing our personality & abilities.

-The soul is the form of the body.

-Body & soul cannot be divided.

-Body is not just a prison for the soul, it is essential.

-The body is the material cause, the soul is the formal cause.

What is Aristotle’s hierachy of being?

-All living things possess a soul made up of an irrational part & rational part.

-Irrational part made up of a vegetative & appetite element.

-Plants= Vegetative element, the ability to gain nutrition.

-Animals= Appetite element which involves movement & desires.

-Humans= They have the ability to reason. This rational part of the soul seperates humans from animals.

What does Aristotle believe about the afterlife?

-Does not believe in life after death.

-Believes the ability of reason survives death.

-Our identity doesn’t survive death but the abstract concept of reason carries on without us.

What does Aquinas say about Aristotle’s views?

-Aquinas agreed with Aristotle. He maintains that the soul is the principle of life & that the body needs to be animated by the soul. He believes both body & soul are necessary as he writes ‘it is clear that man is not soul only’.

What are the arguments against Aristotle?

-If the mind & body both die, how can reason exist as a seperate entity, modern science would say this is an impossibility as reason is linked to the brain.

-John Hick refers to humans as a ‘psycho-physical unity’ where body & soul are one. God makes it possible for this unity to survive death. Resurrection theories are monoistic as they refer to God bringing the soul-body back to life. EG St Paul writes of the body-soul being raised back to life by God in a transformed spiritual state.

What is consciousness?

-Intellect, thinking & being aware of who we are.

What are the 4 aspects of consciousness?

-Logical privacy= No one knows our thoughts, we don’t know anyone elses.

-Subjectivity= Our conscious experiences are from a first person POV.

-Qualia= Describe how an experience feels to the person with the experience.

-Non-spatial= Our consciousness doesn’t take up physical space.

What is hyberbolic doubt & the book its from?

-It is possible to doubt all things, including whether or not his body is real.

-Meditation 1.

What 3 reasons are why Descartes believes it is possible to doubt whether his body is real?

-His senses at times have been unreliable, what if they were always unreliable.

-Hard to know the difference between dreaming & being awake.

-An evil demon (w nothing better to do than decieve us ab everything) could be in charge of the universe.

What is Leibniz law?

-If 2 objects are identical they have to have exactly the same properties.

What is Cognito & the book its from?

-’’I think therefore I am’’.

-The act of thinking proves there is a thinker. It doesn’t prove the body exists.

-From Meditation 2.

What are the differences between mind & body according to Descartes?

-The Cognito enables him to identify the essential nature of the mind which is a ‘thinking thing’.

-The wax argument identifies the essential nature of physical matter & that it’s extended.

-Mind & body are composed of substances with incompatible qualities. The essence of mind is non-physical while the essence of body is extention of physical space.

-A physical thing can be divided into parts, something with no physical location cannot.

What is Dennett’s criticism of Descartes?

-Descartes oversimplifies the connection between the mind & body, arguing conscious thought is more likely to be lots of processes in the physical brain.

-Brain scans track neural activity in the brain showing many areas are used for processing info, imagining & remembering experiences.

What is the identity theory?

-The idea that all mental activity is centered in the brain - a physical organ which can be altered by the psychological effects of drugs which can alter personality, mood or behaviour.

-When physical life ends, the brain dies. So nothing survives after death.

What does Dawkins believe about the soul?

-It is a mythological concept invented to explain the mysteries of consciousness.

-Rejects the religious idea of the soul, & sees it as a metaphor not an actual thing.

-Soul 1= The religious idea of a principle of life. ‘‘Mystic jelly’’.

-Soul 2= ‘‘Intellectual or spiritual power.’’

-As neuroscience develops & we learn more ab the function of the brain, we don’t need the idea of soul 1.

What does Susan Blackmore believe?

-Rejects our conscious is non-physical.

-Consciousness is the last mystery in science.

-It is the work of neuroscientists that have made the progress of understanding it.

-Contents of our minds can be explained by memes, cultural ideas that stick on the pathways of our brain & are passed down by generation to generation.

What are Plato’s arguments for Dualism?

-A soul is required to explain innate knowledge.

-Our innate understanding of forms suggests a soul that pre-exists the body.

-However this argument relies on an acceptance of the existence of the forms.

What are Descartes’ arguments for substance dualism?

-The body is divisible, whereas the mind is invisible as it isn’t possible to seperate it into parts.

-However people suffering from multiple personality disorders experience a split in consciousness.

-It is possible to doubt the body exists but the cognito shows it is not possible to doubt the existence of the thinking thing.

-The mind is a thinking thing which is non-physical, whereas the body is extended meaning it occupies space.

How does Descartes believe there is a link between the body & mind?

-This link is in the pineal gland, inside the brain.

-There are 2 of everything else in the body, but only 1 pineal gland.

-The pineal gland was the home of singular thought & where imagination & common sense are found.

What are the strengths of mind & body being seperate substances?

-Mind & body are different substances because the mind is immaterial & thinking whereas the body is physical. The body can be divided into parts which can be removed but the mind is a singular whole.

-The mind/consciousness is the part that holds the essence of personhood. EG someone given a face transplant is the same person because their mind is the same.

-Gives an explaination of how the body & mind interact through the singular pineal gland. Solving the problem of how an immaterial mind could communicate w a material body.

What are the weaknesses of mind & body being seperate substances?

-Some argue the soul & body are closely connected - people in love say it is a feeling in the soul but this feeling can also affect the body eg loss of appetite. Or those with amputated limbs still feeling sensations such as itching in the foot.

-Descartes says the body is divisible but the mind is indivisible. Psychologists will dispute this, as people can have split personalities.

-What makes a person? Is it only the mind or a combination of factors that include body & mind. EG could you recognise your classmate in 30 years time because of their mind or physical characteristics?

-Medical researchers have found the function of the pineal gland. It secretes hormones that help regulate sleep patterns. Meaning it has a physical function & is unlikely to be the point of contact between mind & body.

What is Materialism?

-Belief that consciousness can be explained by physical or material interactions.

-Rejecting the idea that the soul is a seperate substance.

Why is it a category error to talk about body & mind as seperate substances?

-Personhood involves every aspect of physical & mental. The thinking part of me is not something seperate, it would be like a ghost trying to work a machine.

-It is a category error because the mind & body cannot be described in the same way. EG a visitor asking where the university is after seeing the buildings & students.

Why is it not a category error to talk about body & mind as seperate substances?

-The thinking mind is an immaterial substance which is the real me. The mind directs the actions of the body so talking ab body & mind as seperate substances helps understand personhood.

-The physical body & mind are completely different types of substances - one is physical, the other is spiritual. The body can be divided into parts but the same mind thinks.

-’I think therefore I am’’ shows the mind is seperate from the body.

What are the arguments for materialism?

-Neuroscience knows we know which parts of the brain are responsible for language, memory & emotions. Our states of consciousness are affected by brain chemistry, eg depression.

-Gilbert Ryle’s category error argument.

-How can a non-physical mind/soul interact with a physical body/brain. They’re incompatible substances.

-Consciousness being explained by physical & material events in the brain is the simplest explaination. Ockham’s razor means this explaination is the best.

-As neuroscience is advancing, we are able to link physical reactions in the body to diff parts of the brain eg starving the brain of oxygen makes a person less rational, making the unity of the body & mind arguable.

What are the arguments against materialism?

-Keith Ward in ‘defence of the soul’ argues if we get rid of the soul, it undermines morality, & morality becomes a choice. We need a belief that there is a soul which comes from God & has access to God’s morality in order to give meaning to morality & recognition that the purpose of humans is to be more like God.

-Blackmore may explain how ideas get passed on but does not consider the original source of these ideas. They could come from a supernatural source which is the creator & link to consciousness. Her theory can be used against her as ideas are learned & passed on so her theory isn’t new.

-Everyone knows what their consciousness is like but they cannot share that knowledge with anyone else. The subjectivity of consciousness explains why we can never solve the problem of what is consciousness.

-Dennett argues Skinner oversimplifies human consciousness, what he sees about consciousness of a pigeon can apply to humans.

-John searle argues without the brain cannot be a mind, so the mind is a seperate form of consciousness. EG a film would not exist without a projector to put it up on a screen, & the film still has a seperate existence.

-In response to category error argument, its argued a village is more than just the buildings & number of inhabitants, but something extra - a community spirit. Those who speak of humans as something more than a physical body are not making a mistake, but expressing something intangible, real & important.