Life after Death Part 1 (body and soul) Flashcards
who are the monists
Aquinas
Swinburne
Ward
Ryle
who are the materialists
dawkins
hick
Who are the dualists
Plato
Descartes
Aristotle (soft dualist)
Dawkins
HARD MATERIALIST AND ATHIETST
- Book = The Selfish Gene
- Humans are purely physical beings and there us no such thing as a soul
- “In the sense of soul one, science has either killed the soul or is in the process of doing so. Probably within the next century. Soul one will finally be killed and good riddance.”
- Places faith in DNA as the source of the answers we seek. Could only talk about the soul in a metaphorical way
- Distinguishes between two versions of the soul, which he calls Soul One and Soul Two.
- Soul 1 = religious belief of a non-material thing. Traditional view of a principle of life, a real separate thing that is your personality (REJECTS THIS)
- Soul 2 = genes/DNA and this is the only thing that continues. Deep feelings and sensitivity; high development of the mental faculties (ACCEPTS THIS)
- ‘God of the Gaps’ = literally just using god for everything that cannot be explained.
- humans - Life is just bytes and bytes of digital information - product of our genes.
- Believes conciseness cannot be separated from the brain, because for materialists, nothing exists except matter so therefore rules out possibilities of conscious life after death, since consciousness is caused by purely physical phenomena, so once brain is dead so is consciousness. - shouldn’t fear death, just extinguishing consciousness.
Hick
SOFT MATERIALIST
Book = Death and Eternal Life
- Christian Theologian and rejected the Platonic belief of body and soul dualism.
- For Hick “my soul is not me”
- We are our bodies, but those bodies have a spiritual dimension, which is why he adopts the replica theory; that is when we die, God creates a replica of ourselves in a resurrection world. (REPLICA THEROY)
- Believed in a pscho-somatic unity of the body and soul - they cannot be separate
- Soul = mental/behavioural characteristics
- Follows soul making idea (Irenaeus) - leanrning and developing from the bad things that happen
- Uses John Bunyans ‘Pilgrims Process to the Celestial City’ (one who believes will go to the city = religious, one who thinks theres nothing at the end of the journey = atheist) illustrates how pain / suffering is justified and shows we can always continue our spiritual journey.
- Rejects hell as it is incompatible with an omni benevolent God, he wouldn’t damn eternally.
-Said were unique due to the random arrangements of our genetic material (our being still dependent on God)
- Uses Traducianism which says the soul is passed down from parents (heretical) not something implanted by God.
- John Smith
1) JS disapperead in london and reappeared in NYC
2) JS died in london and was recreated in NYC
3) JS died in london and was buried, is it not logically possible for god to recreate him in another world (the Resurrection world) close to St Pauls teachings in Corinthians 15.
- believes death of the body is the death of the person but god recreated the whole person again in another realm. (same memories)
problems with Hick
- Alzheimers - what memories will the recreated person have
- is there a break between the old and new bodies?
- where is the resurrection world?
- does the body look like it did when the person died, what if you die in a car crash?
- Brian Davies rejects idea of a replica as the same person as the one that has just dies (this still isn’t you though) Would you be happy dying knowing you will be replicated?
Plato
HARD DUALIST
- body are separate, almost opposites.
- Soul was eternal, not simply because it had no end but because it had no beginning. It was not capable of destruction because as a simple substance it had no parts into which to disintegrate.
- Souls true home was the Realm of the Forms - this body is temporary and corruptible, but the soul lives on.
- Soul is guiding force, helping mind and body work together in the same direction. The soul / psyche was the real part of person somehow temporality attached to body and seeking to return to the world of forms after death.
- 4 arguments to prove souls immorality;
1) Linguistic argument - the fact that we use language about ourselves which suggests a distinction. I, we, me refers to an inner, separate reality.
2) Knowledge argument - must be something eternal and not connected with this world of flux
3) Recollection argument - a priori knowledge comes from the soul which is from the World of the forms
4) Cycle of Opposites - small/big, death/life so suggesting a recycling of souls (reincarnation idea)
Platos 3 analogies
- Soul has 3 main parts, Reason (logos), Emotion (thymos) and Appetite (pathos) all three help to balance individual - analogy of the horse and chariot; reason is the charioteer (guiding the forces) and the 2 horses are emotion (white horse) and appetite (black horse) , pulling in slightly different ways that must be carefully controlled / in check.
Analogy of the Meno, a slave boy with no education is given a geometry question and can solve it, proving that we already have all the information we need (from the world of the Forms) and we forgot it during the trauma of child birth so our task is to simply remember it. So this proves that souls lived before in the world of the forms.
Uses the Myth of Er - Er is a solider who dies on the battlefield. However after 10 days his body had not decomposed and on the 12th day he came back to life to tell his story of the after life, how souls were rewarded/punished after death based on their time on earth. Souls could choose a new life for themselves on earth, those rewarded got better options (e.g power, royalty…) Only philosophical, who understood peace and justice benefited from cycle of life/death. Others simply ricocheted between happiness, misery… The myth is meant to demonstrate the necessity of seeking wisdom through philosophy to benefit the soul. People must make the right/conscious choice for the next life. Once our souls have chosen their destiny, they’re given special liquid to drink so they forget previous and after life experiences - expect Er who returned to educate his friends.
criticism of plato
Davies Criticism - not everything has an opposite, lingustic argument doesn’t show a separation
Williams criticism - identity is the body/physical characteristics, things we do to the body effect the mind (drugs), movement proves the mind and body are linked.
- View of soul doesn’t seem to match our experience of ourselves as unified bodies. Theory doesn’t do justice to the way we perceive ourselves as single, unified mind and personality. E.g. thinking about a maths question then we feel the urge to wee - we don’t have the sense of 2 strands pulling different ways, much greater sense of being single entity. Plato argues theres times we feel overcome with emotions/appetites because of reason. E.g after hurtful comment we have the urge to cry but refrain as it may be inappropriate - this internal struggle for Plato was evidence of these different and completing elements of the soul.
- Immortality of the soul depends on our accepting the belief there is a World of the Forms and the nature of knowledge. If we don’t argue with this eternal, unchanging, perfect world we can’t follow theory.
- Plato’s argument from the cycle of opposites criticized as its not approved by experience. We can think of plenty of things which aren’t ‘brought about’ by their opposites. E.g. black doesn’t come from white. Cold isn’t brought by warmth. Life can be opposite to death without meaning that life must be brought by death.
Descartes
HARD DUALIST
Book = Meditations and The Passion of the Soul
- The body and soul were wholly separate substances.
- In Meditations he says” there is a great difference between a mind and a body, because a body is by nature divisible but the mind is not.
- The body is divisible and decays but the soul won’t e.g. if we amputate our foot, the body is clearly effected but the soul/mind isn’t altered so the two components must be separate. Mind is not.
- The Aristotelian / Thomist view, in which the soul is the principle of life played NO part in his views
- In ‘Treatises’ he claims the pineal gland is the seat of the imagination and common sense - here it becomes the link between the body and soul.
- Says all parts of the brain are doubled, we have 2 bodily organs for each sense (ears, eyes, nostrils…) but our mind only perceives a single thought.
- The pineal gland is the bit of the brain which is singular, so it must be the home of the singular thought.
BUT
- How can a physical thing encompass the non-material thought. Davies says science has proved a link between mind and body, how can just the mind survive?
Aristotle
SOFT DUALIST
- NOT a monist
- Believes the soul animates the body but aren’t separate e.g. axe analogy – soul animates axe, if an axe were living thing then its body would be made of wood/metal. But its soul would be the thing which makes it an axe e.g. its ability to chop – without this, it’s not an axe, just wood and metal.
- Wax Analogy – imprint into wax = unchangeable, shape made my stamp is inseparable from wax like the soul is to the body.
- Eye analogy - ability to see
- The body will die but knowledge will continue, soul simply animates the body.
- Soul is a ‘substance’ - term used to mean ‘essence’ or ‘real thing’
- Difference between the body and a corpse is the presence of a soul.
- When the soul dies, so does the body. For him, the soul is the ‘form’ of the body but it’s not eternal, it dies. Speculated perhaps reason might continue eternally. (Didn’t continue in the sense of being an individual personality and it’s not likely he believed people could live after death in ANY personal sense.
- In ‘De Anima’ he said - “the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life’ as he thought there were various kinds of souls. E.g. plants have a vegetative or ‘nutritive’ soul with ability to nourish themselves but have no reason. Animals have ‘perceptive’ souls as they have senses to experience world and react to stimuli. Humans have higher degree soul as we can use reason (right and wrong) - hierarchy
Swinburne
MONIST
- Book = The Evolution of the Soul
- Defends, from within the Christian traditions, the idea that human beings have souls which are distinct from physical bodies and which are capable of surviving after death.
- Believed there are fundamental truths about individuals which cannot be explained in purely physical terms and also the most important parts of us give us our identity - which isn’t found in our physical bodies.
- The soul is unique; it is capable of logical, ordered and complex thought.
- The soul is aware of its own freedom to make choices and moral obligation (it is how we recognise goodness in other people)
- Our soul help us to recognize goodness when we see it and gives us consciousness to know what’s right and wrong.
- soul lets us understand whats good and bad
Ward
MONIST - Against Dawkins
- Book = ‘Defending the Soul’
- he responds to scientists who claim humans are simply physical beings.
- Defends, from within the Christian traditions, the idea that human beings have souls which are distinct from physical bodies and which are capable of surviving after death.
- Argues that without belief in the soul, morality becomes simply a matter of personal choice and taste - but we need the moral claims that souls recognize as coming from God in order to progress and achieve special dignity of being human rather than animals. If we believe morality comes from personal choice then we don’t believe that god gave us our souls
- Without souls, humanity lacks any sense of final purpose.
- He attacks the materialist position (nothing more than physical organisms) as when God created us he “breathed life-giving breath” into Adam so we are filled with the spirit of God and our souls are the breath of God
- Man finds true kinship with God in the goal and fulfilmemt of his existence, the supreme Goodness
Ryle
MONIST - Against Descartes
(1900-76)
- Book = ‘The Concept of the Mind.’
- Psychological criticism of dualism
- He argued that Descartes represented what he called ‘ the dogma of “the ghost in the machine” .’ a vision of the human which made the mind a separate substance somehow attached to the body, acting like a pilot of a ship. The body simply becomes a machine, with the mysterious, non-physical ‘real-me’ like an operator somehow outside the body.
- Argues Descartes is guilty of a category error by assuming incorrectly that two terms (mind and matter) are of the same logical type. They aren’t despite sentences making them look superficially similar.
- Illustrates his points using 3 famous examples;
1) Foreign visitor to Oxford/Cambridge,
2) Boy is watching a military parade,
3) Cricket match
- In the same way Descartes is guilty of a category error as he assumes sentences about the causes, sensations and events must be either mental or physical, this presupposes an unjustified assumption that they can’t be both.
- Glove analogy - you need a pair, cant just ask for the left or right, come together
- To describe someone as happy or clever does not require the existence of a separate mind/soul. The mind/spirit does not exist hence the ghost in the machine.
Aquinas
MONIST
- Very influenced by Aristotle in his views on soul
- He said “ the soul is defined as the first principle of life in living things… It is clear that to be a principle of life, or to be a living thing, does not belong to a body as a body; because, if that were the case, everybody would be a living thing or the principle of life”
- “Therefore the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body, just as heat… is not a body but an act of a body.”
- Aquinas isn’t trying to say the soul is me. It is the principle of life. Life needs the body to be animated.
- Soul is the first principle of life because we call living things animate (with soul) and non-living things inanimate (without soul) so we need a soul to be animate.
- Soul alone isn’t ME - just principle of life.
- He calls the soul, the mind or intellect, which is incorporeal (no moral existence) and subsistent (doesn’t depend on anything else) DOESNT see the soul as something separate.
