Soul, Mind and Body

Dualism

1. Idea that there are two aspects to a human being: mental and physical.

2. Some associate the mental with the soul.

Materialism

Idea that humans consist only of physical matter.

Monism

Idea that humans are made up of a single unity of body and mind, the mind’s existence depending on the body.

Plato’s Beliefs About the Soul

1. Dualist, believed the soul exists independently of the body.

2. Body and soul are two distinct aspects - body is physical and soul is immaterial.

3. It existed before the body existed, and was aware of ‘forms’.

4. After death, the soul leaves the body and lives on, in a cycle of life and death.

5. Believed in a tripartite soul.

Tripartite Soul

1. Appetite - desire for what is necessary (food etc..) and what is unnecessary (luxuries etc..)

2. Spirit - It has trainable aspects, determination to do the right thing, aggressiveness, being honourable, emotion.

3. Reason - Searches for truth, rules the soul, keeps the other areas in check.

4. A good person has a balanced soul, with reason at helm.

Wider Reading On Soul

1. Link to Judaism - soul is also seen in Judaism as it is part of Betzelem Elokim (In G-d’s Image).

2. According to Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett in her book ‘Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain’, she says that Plato’s soul is made of three parts that are in a constant battle with one another. She claims that scientists mapped this idea to the brain and came up with the triune brain idea: the lizard brain (appetite), limbic system (spirit), neocortex (reason). She says that this leads to false ideas “compelling story” and saying that “they do not even live in separate parts of the brain“.

Soul and World of Forms

1. The soul was in the WoF, until it was pulled to Earth by appetite.

2. The body is a prison, and the soul experiences all of the conflict between the body and soul.

3. After death, the soul is reincarnated into another body, or ‘liberated’ and returned to the WoF.

Knowledge and Soul

Quote from Plato’s dialogue ‘Phaedo’:

“Knowledge is not to be attained at all, or if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body.”

1. Plato thought a philosopher’s soul lived on a state of wisdom.

2. Those people who were concerned with bodily demands are reborn as lower creatures.

3. True philosophers should strive to separate the mind and be unhindered by bodily distractions.

Argument of Recollection

1. Slave-boy story from dialogue ‘Meno’ suggests that we remember things rather than learn new knowledge, recalling them from our soul that was in the WoF.

2. However, there is no evidence of the soul or WoF, and meme theory suggests knowledge does not come from the soul but passed from generation-to-generation.

Argument of Opposites

1. Everything in the world has an opposite, the opposite of life is death. Therefore we go through life and death in a cycle, suggesting reincarnation. Reincarnation suggests the existence of a soul.

2. However, there is no definition of an opposite, and not everything has an opposite.

Argument of Knowledge

1. We live in a constant state of flux, but somethings don’t change, e.g. mathematics, so knowledge of mathematics must be derived from the soul.

2. However, mathematics comes from reason, which are deductive truths, there is no reason for the existence of the soul.

Argument of Linguistics

1. Language is distinctive, ‘I’ and ‘me’ vs ‘my body’ and ‘my leg‘. This distinction suggests that we refer to ourselves in two different ways, the body and the soul.

2. However, language is made up - it’s developed by people.

Aristotle’s idea of the Soul

1. Criticised the idea of the soul being separate as “unnecessary”.

2. Monist definition of soul.

3. Believed that the soul is the properties/characteristics of the body.

4. Believed that properties are not additional to the object, but are part of it.

Bertrand Russell Quote Supporting Aristotle’s Soul

“Football couldn’t exist without footballers; redness couldn’t exist without red objects”

Agrees that properties are essential to the object, just like the soul is essential to the body.

Plato vs Aristotle on Soul

1. Plato argued that concepts were forms e.g. beauty. Beauty exists even if there were no beautiful things in the world.

2. Aristotle argued that beauty is merely a property/characteristic of beautiful objects, there is no beauty without beautiful things.

Aristotle’s Soul and Four Causes

1. The soul is the formal cause.

2. The soul is the characteristics and attributes we all have, not an extra part of the body.

3. The body is the material cause.

Types of Soul

1. Vegetative Soul (Plants) - Possess capabilities to get nourishment for themselves, and for reproduction, no ability to reason.

2. Perceptive/Appetitive Soul (Animals) - Perceptive soul as they have the senses to experience the world and react to stimuli, have enough intelligence to distinguish between pleasure and pain.

3. Intellectual Soul (Humans) - Have ability to reason and tell right from wrong, a higher form of soul.

Aquinas Question and Answer on Soul

Question:

- He believed, like Aristotle, the human soul is the form of the body.

- However, man also has activities which do not involve the body, i.e. intellection (Summa Contra Gentile, II, 56).

- This is a contradiction as the soul and body work together, but the soul doesn’t need the body.

Answer:

- The soul acts of its own existence and communicates to the body, but without the body it is not a complete substance (Summa Contra Gentile, II, 56).

- Thus, the soul cannot exist without the body, so it requires the body to exist.

Gilbert Ryle - Behaviourism

1. Wrote “The concept of mind” which took a materialist approach.

2. In this book he argued that any existence of the soul is just a mistake in the way we use language.

3. Said Descartes was wrong, and mocked his idea by suggesting that he claims the mind and body were separate like a ‘ghost in the machine’.

4. Gave the example of Cambridge Uni - its buildings are not separate from the university, and the mind is not separate from the body.

5. Dualism is a category error: treats the mind and body as if in two distinct logical categories, not in the same logical category.

6. Cricket Illustration: ‘Team spirit’ cannot be seen like bowlers and fielders. It is a combination of parts, not the part itself.

Ryle on Descartes

1. Ryle accuses Descartes of trying to categorise all things into either material or physical.

2. Descartes is saying there is an additional thing to the body, controlling its behaviour.

3. This is an unnecessary categorisation.

Free Will and Materialism

1. The existence of free will is a problem for materialism.

2. If all thoughts are the results of chemical reactions, it is difficult to see how we would behave differently if we wanted to.

Richard Dawkins beliefs on Materialism

1. Believed no part of the body is non-physical.

2. Only matter exists.

3. Once the brain dies, consciousness can no longer exist.

‘Selfish Gene’ by Richard Dawkins

1. Claims that humans are nothing more than survival machines.

2. We don’t have a soul that distinguishes us from other species.

3. Describes humans as “robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes”.

‘River out of Eden’ by Richard Dawkins

“Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information”.

Dawkins view on Religion

1. Immortality of the soul has no basis.

2. Religious people are just scared of death and their own morality.

Explanatory Gap

1. Dawkins believes the soul is a soul of the gaps argument.

2. There is a gap in our knowledge about the brain and mind.

3. This is called the explanatory gap.

4. Dawkins believes that as science develops the explanatory gap will decrease, and science will eventually kill off the explanatory gap.

Arguments for Materialism

1. Functional magnetic scanners can detect changes in the brain when the subject looks at different images. This suggests mental activities such as thought and attention are caused by physical events in the brain.

2. If there is nothing more to personhood than the body or brain, there is no need for an afterlife. This solves the problem of what happens after I die.

3. Research from NASA developed sensors on the throat, which detect words said silently to oneself. This suggests it may be possible to read one’s thoughts by sensors detecting a physical response.

Arguments against Materialism

1. Some people have paranormal experiences, which points to a metaphysical realm, something beyond the physical.

2. Dawkins’s claim that scientists will be able to fully understand consciousness is an assumption. He is filling in the gaps in our knowledge, just like those who fill in the gap with an immaterial soul.

3. Even if mental activities can be tracked by physical change in the brain, there is still the problem as to how this comes about and the intention behind it. Nerves have no desires or intentions.

Dawkins’s Theory of Soul 1 and 2.

1. Soul 1: The Biblical archetype of a soul.

2. Soul 2: How the brain actually works - mind and intellectually.

Wider Reading

John Hick, David Hume, Anthony Flew, Bertrand Russell.

Substance

1. A substance is a subject with various properties.

2. Properties cannot exist without a substance.

Substance Dualism

1. The mind is a substance and intentions, feelings and emotions are properties of the mind.

2. The other substance of a human is the body (subject with properties e.g. tall/short)

3. Mind and body are two separate substances which both exist.

Difference in Properties Between Mind and Body

1. Body has the property of extension - takes up space and measurement - mind does not.

2. Mind has the property of thought and the body does not.

3. Both mind and body form humans - with physical and mental capabilities.

Philosophers Who Believe in Dualism

1. Socrates.

2. Plato.

3. Rene Descartes.

Descartes Argument for the Separation of Soul and Body

In “Discourses” by Descartes:

1. Descartes doubted whether anything he knew was true, so he decided to doubt everything and try and find at least one thing that he knew to be true.

2. He questioned how one could truly know anything and doubted whether he existed.

3. He established 3 levels of doubt: illusions, dreaming and a brain in a vat.

4. He realised that he must exist, as he had the ability to doubt, and you cannot doubt without a mind.

5. He said “je pense, donc je suis” - meaning I think, therefore I am

6. He knew that the mind must be different to the body, as the body could not doubt, but the mind can - they have different properties.

Argument from Doubt for Substance Dualism

“Discourses on the method Part 4” - Descartes

1. I can doubt my body exists.

2. I cannot doubt I exist.

3. So I am not my body.

Follows Leibniz’s Law - If A=B, then A and B have the same properties.

Argument from Clear and Distinct Perception for Substance Dualism

Paragraph 16 of “Meditation VI” - Descartes

1. I can clearly and distinctly conceive of a world where my mind and body are separate.

2. Whatever I can clearly and distinctly conceive of can be brought about by G-d.

3. So G-d can separate me from my body.

4. So, I can exist separately from my body.

5. So, my body and mind are not the same thing.

Follows a similar line of reasoning to Anselm’s argument for G-d, so has the same flaws.

Argument from Divisibility for Substance Dualism

Paragraph 32 of “Meditation VI” - Descartes

1. Body is divisible into parts.

2. The mind is not divisible into parts.

3. So the mind is not the body.

This succumbs to the fallacy of composition.