Soul, Mind And Body

Question 1

What is substance dualism?

Answer 1

The ideas that there are 2 aspects to human beings, the physical and the mental. The mental may be identified with the soul

Question 2

What is materialism?

Answer 2

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

Question 3

What is Plato and opposites?

Answer 3

-The Greek philosopher Plato provided one if the first examples of a dualist viewpoint. Plato’s philosophy often deals in opposites; the forms and the particulars, knowledge versus opinion, the philosopher and the non-philosopher
-The idea of a dual aspect is particularly important to his ideas about human beings

Question 4

What does Plato say about the soul and it’s body?

Answer 4

-Plato argued that the soul is more important than the body. The body is part of the empirical world and like all objects is subject to change; hence it cannot be a reliable guide to the truth.
-The body allows us to gain opinions via our senses. The soul, however, enables us to have knowledge
-Our bodies are constantly distracting us from our real purpose: philosophical thought. The soul is the opposite of this. It is immortal and cannot be divided. It is unchanging and most importantly, it is capable of knowledge. This is why Plato very dramatically refers to the soul as being trapped within the body.
-The relationship between body and soul is not a partnership, it is an imprisonment

Question 5

What does Plato say about the make-up of the soul?

Answer 5

-Plato draws an analogy to describe the inner workings of the soul. He compares it to a charioteer in charge of 2 horses
-One of the horses behaves, but the other does not. Plato explains that there are 3 aspects present within the soul: the reason, the spirit and the appetite/desire
-The soul works best when the charioteer or reason is in charge. Unfortunately, the horses often pull in different directions. Our appetites can lead us to things that are not helpful.
-We also need spirit or will to make us determined to do the right thing. For Plato a good person is one whose soul is properly balanced with reason in charge

Question 6

What did Plato say about the soul: past, present and future?

Answer 6

-In the past, the soul was in the realm of forms. The soul has knowledge of the forms before being pulled to earth by the appetites.
-In the present, it is incarnated in a body and experiences all the tension of the conflict between body and soul
-Plato views the body as a prison and talks of the soul being liberated from it at death.
-In the future, it will be freed from the body and will be reincarnated into another body or eventually return to the realm of the forms

Question 7

What did Aristotle say about the soil not being a separate substance?

Answer 7

-Aristotle rejects the substance dualism of Plato. The soil is not something completely extra and different to the body. His reasoning for arriving at this conclusion is based on his understanding of the idea of form
-Aristotle had criticised Plato’s theory of the forms as unnecessary. Aristotle’s definition of a form is a property that is possessed by something, yet, unlike Plato it is not additional to the object.

Question 8

What examples does Bertrand Russell provide for Aristotle’s view of the body and soul?

Answer 8

-Football could not exist if there were no footballers, likewise redness could not exist as a property if there were no red objects

Question 9

What does Aristotle say about ‘Soul’ as form of the body?

Answer 9

-‘Soul’ is a description of the essence or properties of the body. It is our personality and abilities. The soul is the form of the body
-The two cannot be divided; the body is not just a prison for the soul as Plato thinks, but is essential to us. We are body and soul
-Aristotle illustrates the relationship between the body and the soul with his examples of the axe and the eye. He suggests that if the body were an axe, the ‘soul’ wojld be it’s ability to chop
-If the body were an eye, the ‘soul’ would be the ability to see
-From both cases, is it clear that there can be no soil present without the body

Question 10

What is Aristotle’s hierarchy of being?

Answer 10

-All living things possess soul, according to Aristotle. The human soul is made up of an irrational part and a rational part. The irrational part is made up of a vegetative element and an appetitive element
-Plants have only the vegetative element, which is essentially the ability to gain nutrition
-Animals in addition to this also have the appetitive element, which involves movement and desires
-Human souls, for Aristotle, are different as they also have the ability to reason. This rational part of the soul is what separates human beings from animals
This categorisation of different creatures is known as the hierarchy of being and has been influential in philosophical and religious thought

Question 11

What are Aristotle’s views on the afterlife?

Answer 11

-At first glance, it seems obvious that Aristotle does not believe in life after death. However, there is some evidence that he may have believed the ability to reason in some way survives death
-If this is the case, it does not mean that our identity survives death, but that the abstract property of reasoning carries on without us
-However, this thought is not really developed in any of the warnings of Aristotle that have survived

Question 12

What is the metaphysics of consciousness?

Answer 12

-Philosophers have found the phenomenon of consciousness fascinating. It seems that I am aware of my thoughts, feelings, aches and pains in a unique way.
-While others may tell me what they are feeling or what is on their mind. I cannot know for certain that this is the case nor know that their headache feels the same as mine
-

Question 13

What is logical privacy?

Answer 13

No one other than me can know my thoughts. I cannot know the thoughts of others

Question 14

What does subjectivity mean?

Answer 14

My conscious experiences are from a first person point of view

Question 15

What is qualia?

Answer 15

This is a term used by philosophers to describe how an experience feels to the person who has the experience

Question 16

What does non spatial mean?

Answer 16

Although materialists May despite this, it would seem that our consciousness does not take up physical place

Question 17

What does Descartes say about doubting the body and proving the soul?

Answer 17

-He explains that it is possible to doubt all things, including whether or not his body is real. His reasoning for this is three fold
1. His senses have at times been unreliable. What if they were always unreliable?
2. It is often hard to know the difference between dreaming and being awake
3. An evil demon- who has nothing better to do than deceive us about everything- could be in charge of the universe

Question 18

What is Descartes’ final point?

Answer 18

-He realises that there is one thing that it is not possible to doubt; he is certain that he exists. The phrase he uses is ‘I think, therefore I am’
-This is known as the cogito from the Latin translation of his words. Even if he were wrong about everything, the very act of thinking proves that there is a thinker
-Yet this argument only proves the existence of the ‘thinking part’ of us
-The fact that there is a difference between the mind/soul and the body enables Descartes to argues that the existence of the mind is logically independent of the body
-For something to be identical with something else, it would have to share all it’s properties
-The fact there is a difference between mind and body revealed that there are 2 things not one
-This logical principle is known as Leibiniz law

Question 19

What are the differences between mind and body?

Answer 19

1. Descartes argues that the cogito enables him to identify the essential nature of the mind and this is that it is a ‘thinking thing’. The essence of mind is thought, which is non physical
2. The wax argument enables Descartes to identify the essential nature of physical matter and this is that it is extended. Remember that this property, extension, is the only thing that remains once the wax has changed
3. The point is that the mind and body are composed of substances which have incompatible qualities. The essence of mind is non physical thought, while the essence of body is extension of physical space. What this means, he argues, is that they cannot be one and the same thing. In a further use of Leibiniz law, he argues that whilst a physical thing can be divided into sections or parts, something that has no physical location cannot be divided. Mind, then, is indivisible as well as immaterial

Question 20

What did Richard Dawkins say about materialism?

Answer 20

-Dawkins argues that the idea of a ‘soul’ is a mythological concept invented by the ancients to explain the mysteries of consciousness. In the same way that ‘the Gods are angry’ may have been an explanation for thunder thousands of years ago, the idea of the soul provided a convenient ‘explanation’ of the mysteries of personality and consciousness.
-Yet it is ‘not an explanation but an evasion’. Just as our explanation of thunder has been replaced with a scientific one, so too our belief in souls will be replaced
-Dawkins strongly rejects the religious or platonic idea of the soul but he does accept that it is possible to use the term metaphorically. This is fine as long as we don’t believe it refers to an actual thing. He uses the terms soul 1 and soul 2 to illustrate the difference

Question 21

What is soul 1?

Answer 21

The traditional idea of a principle of life; a separate thing that contains our personality, the real person. This view is to be rejected

Question 22

What is soul 2?

Answer 22

Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘intellectual or spiritual power. High development of the mental faculties’. This is a meaningful way of speaking provided we are clear that this is not a separate thing from the brain

Question 23

What did Gilbert Ryle argue about Materialism?

Answer 23

-For Gilbert Ryle, our problems stem from thinking about the mind as a ‘thing’ that is either physical or non physical. Descartes dualism, which Ryle calls ‘the dogma of the ghost in the machine, is mistaken.
-It is ‘entirely false, not in detail but in principle. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is a category mistake’
-There is nothing extra; just human behaviour which can be analysed by science. The mind body problem comes from thinking about the mind in the wrong way.

Question 24

What are Plato’s 2 arguments for dualism?

Answer 24

1. Innate knowledge
2. The linguistic argument

Question 25

What does Plato mean by innate knowledge?

Answer 25

Plato argues that the soul is required to explain a priori knowledge, particularly innate knowledge. In his dialogue, the meno, Plato shows Socrates questioning an uneducated slave who with gentle encouragement and the right questions is able to come up with Pythagoras’ theorem. This and our innate understanding of other forms seems to suggest a sound that pre exists the body. However this could seem as not very convincing. The dialogue itself contains some quite leading questions and the argument relies on an acceptance of the existence of the forms

Question 26

What was Plato’s linguistic argument (sometimes called the user and the used)?

Answer 26

Plato’s argument draws a distinction between how we speak of ourselves and our body. Whereas we say, ‘I am happy’ or ‘I am thinking’ in terms of our mental states, we say ‘I have a body’ in the same way that we might say ‘I have a house’. This suggests that we are not our bodies. There is a difference between us (the user) and our bodies (the used). However this is reading too much into our language. I might also say that I have a headache or an idea. It feels as if language has ‘gone on holiday’

Question 27

What are Descartes’ arguments for substance dualism?

Answer 27

In both of Descartes’ arguments given here, he uses the philosophical principle known as Leibiniz law. If 2 objects are identical they have to have exactly the same properties; so if object A and object B don’t have a certain property then they must be different. If Descartes can find a difference between the mind and the body, then it would seem that dualism might be true.
1. Divisibility
2. Doubt

Question 28

What is Descartes argument of divisibility?

Answer 28

The body is divisible- it can be separated into parts. The mind is indivisible as it is not possible to separate the ‘I’ that is conscious into different parts. However, some psychologists would dispute the chain that it is not possible to split consciousness. When people suffer from multiple personality disorders they do seem to genuine experience a split in consciousness

Question 29

What is Descartes argument of doubt?

Answer 29

It is possible for Descartes to doubt the existence of the body. Yet the cogito shows it is not possible to doubt the existence of the ‘I’, the thinning thing. However one famous counter example to Descartes is called the ‘masked man fallacy’. It may be possible to doubt that my father is the makes robber ans impossible to doubt that he is married to my mother, but this does not mean that both cannot be true. Whether we are able to doubt something isn’t a property of the thing itself, it is a property of our minds. Just because J think that one thing is uncertain and another thing is certain does not mean this is the case

Question 30

What are the arguments materialists give to suggest that the soul does not exist and that the mind is really the workings of the physical brain?

Answer 30

1. Neuroscience
2. The problem of interaction
3. Category error
4. Simplicity

Question 31

What is materialists argument for neuroscience?

Answer 31

-Neuroscience is the branch of science that studies the brain. Over recent years there has been great progress in understanding the brain. We know which parts of the brain are responsible for language, memory and emotions.
-Our states of consciousness are affected by brain chemistry; one example being depression, which can be treated by medication that alters the chemistry of the brain
-Materialists, such as Dawkins, are very strong in their belief that eventually we will be able to identify all mental processes with the brain and have a complete explanation of consciousness.
-However, dualists refer to the phenomenon of ‘qualia’. This is the actual feel of our conscious experiences.
-They argue that no matter how much knowledge we acquire of the brains, this is knowledge from the outside. However, consciousness is a first person phenomenon and cannot be solved by third person science

Question 32

What is the materialist argument of the problem of interaction?

Answer 32

-One key argument for materialists is to point out a possible issue with dualism. How can a non physical mind or soul interact with a physical body/brain?
-It would seem that they are completely incompatible substances
-One philosopher has explained that this is like asking how the ghost rides the bicycle; it’s non physical ‘feet’ can never apply pressure to physical pedals.
-Likewise, if our thought that we would like a cup of coffee is a non physical thing, how does it transmit to our brain and lead to the action of going to the kitchen?

Question 33

What is the materialist argument of a category error?

Answer 33

-Gilbert Ryle argues that belief that there is a separate soul is a category mistake. Descartes and other dualists are thinking of the mind in the wrong way. Ryle illustrates this with an example: imagine a foreign visitor to Oxford or Cambridge university
-He is shown the colleges, the libraries, the playing fields, museums, accommodation and offices.
-Suppose he were to say, ‘Yes, I have seen all these things but where is the university itself?’
-This is the same sort of mistake that Descartes makes with the mind. The visitor wrongly assumes that the university is something extra

Question 34

What is the materialist argument of simplicity?

Answer 34

-Materialists argue that consciousness being explained by physical and material events in the brain is the simplest explanation. This uses the philosophical principle of Ockham’s Razor- you should not multiply entries beyond necessity- or in other words you should generally take the simplest explanation
-Dualism suggests that there are 2 aspects of us and that one of these is beyond our ability to empirically investigate it. Materialism suggests we are one substance that can be empirically examined

Question 35

What is property dualism?

Answer 35

-Some modern philosophers, such as Frank Jackson, while thinking that substance dualism and it’s belief in non physical souls is naive and old fashioned, accept that the mind cannot be reduced to just the physical brain
-They argue for a position called ‘property dualism’. This theory accepts that there is only one substance, the physical brain, but maintains that there are 2 types of properties: mental and physical.
-They differ from materialists such as Dawkins as they argue that the mental properties such as having a thought or experiencing a pain cannot be reduced to a specific location in the brain even though they are caused by the brain