CH1.2 Soul, mind and body

Question 1

what type of question is the question of what it means to be human?

Answer 1

it is a metaphysical question

Question 2

What is metaphysics?

Answer 2

it is the branch of philosophy which deals with deals with questions that are beyond physics. E.g the existence of god.

Question 3

how is the word ‘soul’ in the philosophical sense used?

Answer 3

in the philosophical sense, the word ‘soul’ is mainly used as meaning the same thing as ‘self’, to refer to the subject of mental states and of spiritual experience.

Question 4

what did Plato think about the soul and body?

Answer 4

for Plato, the soul and body were two separate entities.
-the body is the temporary, physical, material aspect of the person, and the soul is the essential (in the sense of being to essence of the person), immaterial aspect.

Question 5

In Plato’s understanding, what connection does the soul and body have?

Answer 5

in Plato’s understanding, the soul is temporarily united with a physical body, but can leave the body and move on.

Question 6

In his work Phaedo, what does Plato put into Socrates mouth?

Answer 6

in his work Phaedo, Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates his beliefs about the immortality of the soul.
-Plato wanted to show that Socrates had not failed in his mission to educate people, even though he had been executed, because his soul would continue to immortality after death. It would be released from the body and able to renew its contemplation of the Form of the Good.
-Socrates argued that the soul continues to live on in a mode where it still has thought and intelligence. After death, it is undisturbed by the distractions of constant bodily demands so that it can reach its highest state.
-Socrates also argued that the soul necessarily must continue living, because life is the essence of what a soul is. The soul animates the person by giving it life, so if a soul is a life-giving essence, then it was obvious (to Socrates and Plato) that it must always have a life.

Question 7

according to Plato, what would the soul dying be?

Answer 7

the soul dying would be contradictory. This is because life is the essence of a soul.

Question 8

threw the mouthpiece of Socrates, what are the arguments that Plato gives to justify the view that the soul is immortal?

Answer 8

• he argues that every quality comes into being from its own opposite, or at least depends on its opposite, to have any existence at all. Something is ‘big’ because there are smaller things; something is ‘bright’ because there are duller things. Qualities, then, depend on their status relative to each other. Plato uses this notion to draw the conclusion that, therefore, life comes from death, and death comes from life, in an endless chain of birth, death and birth.
  -Plato uses an argument from knowledge to support his belief in the immortality of the soul. In the dialogue ‘Meno’, a slave-boy with no education is given a geometry puzzle to solve. Through questioning, the boy is able to work out the answer to the problem, which (to Plato) illustrated that the boy must have been using knowledge he already has, from before birth, because his status in life meant that he could not have had the education necessary to help him solve such problems. To Plato, this showed that our souls had once lived in the world of perfect Forms.

Question 9

what metaphor did Plato use to describe the soul?

Answer 9

he used the metaphor of a chariot being pulled by two horses.
-the two horses are ‘appetite’ and ‘emotion’, basic needs which pull us along and motivate us; they are controlled by the charioteer ‘reason’, who holds the reins and makes sure that the appetite and the emotion work together in a rational direction.
-without the guiding hand of reason, we would be led astray

Question 10

what is Plato’s view of the soul called?

Answer 10

it is called a ‘tripartite view’ as he saw the soul consisting of three elements:
-emotion
-appetite
-reason

Question 11

so for Plato, because the soul is immortal and the body is not, what does this mean?

Answer 11

this means that the soul and the body have to be two different and distinct things.

Question 12

did Plato question the means by which the mind and body might be joined together and work together?

Answer 12

no, but he did consider how an immortal soul might become attached to a particular individual person’s temporary physical body

Question 13

what story does Plato introduce at the end of Republic? Explain the story

Answer 13

he introduces the story of the ‘Myth of Er’
-a soldier called Er died on the battlefield. At least, he appeared to die, but ten days later, when the fighting was over and it was safe for the bodies to be recovered for funerals, there was no sign that Er’s body had decomposed at all. On the 12th day, when Er’s body had been placed on the funeral pyre, he suddenly came back to life, and was able to tell everyone all that he had experienced in the afterlife.

Question 14

(continuing the Er story) when Er was telling his listeners about what happened in his afterlife, what did he say?

Answer 14

-he told his listeners that once he died, he set out on a journey in which he encountered judges who rewarded and punished the souls of those who had died. Those who had lived morally good lives went upward into a place where they were rewarded for all their good deeds; those who had been immoral were punished with pain equal to ten times the amount of pain they had inflicted on earth. Some had committed crimes so bad that they could never be released from underground punishment.
-Er also witnessed the way in which souls choose for themselves a new life on earth, either animal or human, before being reborn.
-only the philosophical, who understand the importance of choosing a new life of peace and justice, benefited from the cycle of life and death. The others simply ricocheted between happiness and misery, reward and punishment.

Question 15

according to many scholars, what is the ‘Myth of Er’ meant to demonstrate?

Answer 15

it is meant to demonstrate the necessity of seeking wisdom through philosophy in order for the soul to benefit.
-they come to understand what makes a good life and leads to reward, and what to avoid. Each person has a conscious choice to make about the next life, and therefore carries all the responsibility for it.

Question 16

did Aristotle agree with Plato? What different questions was Aristotle asking?

Answer 16

no
-he was asking himself questions which were rather different; while Plato was interested in the best ways to run a society and the importance of philosophical reasoning for the gaining of wisdom, Aristotle was more interested in this physical world and the things that could be learned about it by scientific, empirical obeservation.

Question 17

when Aristotle considered the nature of the soul, in what context was it?

Answer 17

in the context of trying to discover the essence of things
-what is it that makes us essentially human? What distinguishes a living person from a dead one?

Question 18

In Aristotle’s view, what was the soul?

Answer 18

in his view, the soul was a ‘substance’, which was a term he used in his own way to mean the ‘essence’ or ‘real thing’

Question 19

what problem did Aristotle see? what was his answer?

Answer 19

-the problem he saw was: how can we say that the new-born baby, the toddler, the child, the adolescent, the adult and the elderly man are all the ‘same person’?
-his answer to this was that the physical body is in a continual state of change, but the ‘substance’ remains the same, in terms of the continuing identity. This continuing identity, or ‘essence’ is what Aristotle understood to be the soul, for which he used the term ‘psyche’

Question 20

What did Aristotle consider the soul to not just be?

Answer 20

he considered the soul to be not just some kind of invisible part of the person, but include the matter and structure of the body along with its functions and capabilities -its ‘form’, using the word ‘form’ in the same sense that he uses it when talking about a ‘formal cause’

Question 21

According to Aristotle, what does a soul give a living thing?

Answer 21

the soul is that which gives a living thing its essence, so that it is not just matter but has all the capabilities and characteristics that it needs in order to be what is it.

Question 22

for Aristotle, what distinguishes a living thing from a dead thing?

Answer 22

the soul

Question 23

what did Aristotle think there were various kinds of?

Answer 23

-he thought that there were various kinds of souls.
-plants have a vegetative or ‘nutritive’ soul, in that they have the capabilities to get nourishment for themselves and to ensure the reproduction of the species, but they have no ability to reason or to make plans.
-animals have ‘perceptive’ souls, because they have senses with which to experience the world around them, and they react to different stimuli. They have enough intelligence to distinguish between pleasure and pain.

Question 24

according to Aristotle, why do humans have a higher degree of soul?

Answer 24

because they have the ability to reason, and they can tell right from wrong.

Question 25

does Aristotle consider the soul to be a separate entity, distinct from the body?

Answer 25

no, he does not consider the soul to be some separate entity, distinct from the body.
-the soul is the capacities that the body has, to do whatever it is meant to do.
-in this way, Aristotle’s thinking about the soul is linked with his ideas about causality; the soul is that which gives the matter its form, its efficiency and its final purpose (telos)

Question 26

How does Aristotle use the example of an axe to explain what a soul is?

Answer 26

the soul of an axe, if we can imagine it to be a living thing, then, would be its capacity to chop.
-the capacity to chop could not have an existence on its own

Question 27

did Aristotle think that the soul could survive the death of the body?

Answer 27

because he believed that the soul and the body could not be separated, his view does not allow for the idea that the soul could survive the death of the body in any way.
-his view was a much more materialist one than Plato’s.
-However, as his thought developed, Aristotle began to wonder if perhaps the reason might be able to survive even when the body had died; but his thoughts on the nature of human reason and the extent to which the reason requires a physical body are among the most difficult and obscure of his writings.

Question 28

why do some people argue that machines are different to humans?

Answer 28

some people ague that machines are different from humans because machines lack the consciousness that humans have
-they might extend this to argue that everything machines can do is capable of being explained in physical terms, whereas in contrast, human beings are more than just physical and there are some aspects of human existence which cannot be explained physically.

Question 29

what is meant by dualism?

Answer 29

the view that, a human being can be though of as consisting of two separate things: (1) the physical body; and (2) the non-physical mind

Question 30

what is substance dualism?

Answer 30

it is the name given to the view that the mind and the body are separate substances which both exist

Question 31

what is a substance? what can properties no do?

Answer 31

-a substance is a subject which has various properties. E.g. my mug is a substance, and is has the properties of being patterned, breakable, and nonporous.
-properties cannot exist on their own, without a substance which has those properties. There is no such thing as the property of being soft, existing separately from soft things

Question 32

in terms of substances and properties, to do with this, what question arises for philosophers of mind? How do substance dualists answer the question?

Answer 32

-the question which arises is whether the mind is a substance which has properties or whether it is something else
-well substance dualists hold the view that the mind is a substance, and that thoughts, intentions, feelings and emotions are properties of the mind.

Question 33

according to substance dualists, what is the other substance of a human person, other than the mind?

Answer 33

the body is the other substance of a human person.
-the body is also a substance in the same sense of being a subject which has properties. It could have the properties of being tall, or young, or freckled.

Question 34

in substance dualism, is the mind physical or extended?

Answer 34

no, but it does have the properties of though (mental capabilities)

Question 35

who does the most famous defence of a dualist understanding of human nature come from?

Answer 35

from Rene Descartes

Question 36

in one of Descartes’ earliest works called Le Monde, what did he suggest?

Answer 36

-he suggested that all the matter in the universe was essentially the same kind of thing.
-there was no ‘earthly substance’ in contrast with ‘heavenly substances’ as the medieval thinkers had supposed; and the earth was, in Descartes’ view, not uniquely special in its construction, but just one small part of a whole universe which operated on the same fundamental laws of nature

Question 37

how did Descartes find the clear distinction between the mind and body?

Answer 37

-Descartes adopted a method of ‘hyperbolic doubt’, where he doubted everything he knew. He rejected anything which he doubted was true.
-after having doubted almost everything, he realised that there was one fact, the ‘first certainty’ which he could not possibly doubt and which could lead him back onto the path of establishing some truths: this was the fact that there he was, thinking sceptically.
-he could not doubt his own existence as a thinker, because he would have to exist as a thinker in order to be able to do the doubting: and so thus he arrived to his famous conclusion: ‘i think therefore i am’
-he knew for certain that he had a mind, because he could not possibly doubt it without a contradiction, but he could not be certain that he had a body. Therefore, it seemed for Descartes that the mind and the body had to be two distinct substances.

Question 38

how did Descartes try to explain the fact that the body and mind can interact despite being different substanced?

Answer 38

-he thought that the pineal gland had something to do with the connection between the soul and the body.
-he thought the pineal gland contained air-like ‘animal spirits’ which controlled imagination, sense perception, bodily movement and memory.
-in a letter of 1640, he put forward the view that the pineal gland was ‘the principle seat of the soul’ although he was not entirely clear about how this worked.
-he had come to this conclusion because other parts of the head are ‘double’: we have 2 eyes, 2 ears and so on, but just one pineal gland, which is central. To Descartes, the singularity of the pineal gland strongly suggested that it could be the connecting point between the material person and the immaterial soul.

Question 39

what is property dualism?

Answer 39

it is the idea that there is only one kind of material, physical substance, but there are two distinct properties: mental and physical properties. The physical matter of the brain has physical properties (such as size and mass and shape) but also has mental properties (such as opinions, emotions and memories)
-in other words, property dualists hold that the mind and the body have different properties but the same substance

Question 40

what is one popular kind of property dualism?

Answer 40

one popular kind of property dualism is ‘emergent materialism’, which is the idea that as physical things become more and more complex, new properties ‘emerge’` from them, which cannot be reduced simply to the material.

Question 41

what is reductive materialism?

Answer 41

it is a theory of mind which has a lot of different names, including ‘identity theory’ and ‘type physicalism’
-it is a theory which says that the mind is not distinct from the physical brain but is identical with it.
-according to this theory, mental states can be classified into different types, such as memory, pain, happiness, desire and so on, and these different types correspond to activities in different parts of the brain. When chemical reactions are happening in a particular part of the brain, we feel an emotion or we make a decision or we remember a fact, depending on the type of mental event that corresponds with that part of the brain.

Question 42

does reductive materialism allow for room for the concept of life after death?

Answer 42

no it does not.

Question 43

what view did Gilbert Ryle take?

Answer 43

he took a materialist view

Question 44

what did Gilbert Ryle argue?

Answer 44

he argued that treating the mind and the body as if they were 2 things of a similar logical kind was a ‘category error’
-he criticised the notion that the mind is distinct from the body, or that mental states are different from physical states.

Question 45

what do modern materialist views, such as those held by Richard Dawkins, assume?

Answer 45

they assume that there is no part of a person that is non-physical

Question 46

what does Richard Dawkins in his book propose?

Answer 46

-he proposes that humans are nothing more than ‘survival machines’, and he completely discounts the idea that humans have any kind of soul to distinguish them from other species.