Soul, mind and body Flashcards
Plato’s ideas about the soul, mind and body
~Dualist understanding of the mind and body- they’re two separate entities
~He thought that the soul would return to the World of the Forms after death
~Tripartite view of the soul- it’s made up of reason, appetite and emotion
~Life and death come from each other in an endless chain of where souls are reborn
Chariot Analogy
Reason is the charioteer that guides the two horses reason and appetite to keep them under control
Aristotle’s ideas about the soul mind and body
~Disagreed with Plato
~He thought that the soul was a substance, meaning ‘essence’ or ‘real thing’
~The soul is that which gives a living thing ‘essence’
~The soul is not distinct from the body
~Soul gives bodily matter its form, efficiency and telos
Wax Analogy
Aristotle used the analogy of wax with a stamp in it to illustrate his idea that the soul couldn’t be separated from the body
Substance dualism
~The idea that the mind and body are two distinct substances with two different set of properties
~Descartes argued that the mind and body cannot be the same as he thought ‘I think therefore I am’ shows that the existence of the body can’t be certain but the existence of the mind can
~He thought that the mind and body could be connected by the pineal gland
~Substance allows the possibility of life after death
Property Dualism
There is only one kind of substance which is matter but that matter can have two distinct properties such as physical and mental
Emergent dualism
New properties emerge from physical matters as it becomes more complex and the mind and body are different but not completely distinct
Reductive materialism
~The mind is not distinct from the body but is identical with it
~Mental states correspond with different activities in the brain
~Materialism doesn’t allow for life after death
Gilbert Ryle
~Argues that the mind is nit a distinct part of the body but an aspect of the way that the body behaves e.g ‘team spirit’ is an aspect of the way a cricket team behaves
~There is is no ‘ghost in the machine’ there is no non-physical soul in the matter of the body
Richard Dawkins
~Argues that humans are eternally material, they are ‘survival machines’
~He rejects the idea that we need a supernatural soul if we are explaining what it menas to be human
~Calls platonic ideas of the soul ‘soul one’ and Aristotelian ideas of the soul ‘soul two’
Criticisms of the dualist approach to the mind-body problem
~Our personal experiences do not support a dualist approach as we feel ourselves to be a unity with mental and physical aspects
~Dualist approaches can’t explain how the mind and body work together e.g. why fear makes you’re heart rate increase
~The distinction between mental and physical properties aren’t always clear-cut
Criticisms of materialist approaches to mind-body problem
~The way we use language suggests that we feel ourselves to be more than a physical body
~Descartes’ observation of the mind and body have different properties and cannot be the same substance is a valid point
~Swinburne and Ward argue that losing belief in the soul can have a damaging effect on ethics