Soul, mind and body

Question 1

Plato’s view if the soul

Answer 1

He was a dualist who believed that the soul and body are separate - the soul is part of the form of the good.

Charioteer analogy:
Horse 1 = desire
Horse 2 = emotion
Charioteer = ability to reason
This can lose control and the sol could fall down into the body (prison).

Question 2

The theory of opposites

Answer 2

Everything that comes to be must be from its opposite form - eg. dying must come with life.

Plato used this to claim that there must be life after death whereby the soul can be reused.

Question 3

Slave boy (Menno)

Answer 3

The slave is constantly being questioned by Socrates to suggest that when we learn things in our current life, we are being reminded of what we already know.

Question 4

Anamnesis

Answer 4

recollection, usually from a prior existence

Question 5

Aristotle’s view of the soul

Answer 5

He was a weak dualist who believed that the soul is what animates the body and gives it its characteristics and form therefore they cannot be completely separate

Wax and stamp analogy:
Wax = body
Stamp = soul
They cannot exist without one another

Question 6

Why did Aristotle have this view of the soul?

Answer 6

He was an empiricist therefore he made use of observations and sense experience to conclude that there must be a soul.

Question 7

How does the example of the axe explain the soul?

Answer 7

The purpose of the axe is to chop, if the axe is only a toy then it cannot commit its purpose - the toy axe is the body with no soul.

Question 8

What does Aristotle believe happens to the soul when we die?

Answer 8

He believed that the soul was inseparable from the body therefore he did not believe that the soul could exist after death.

Question 9

Did Aristotle believe all living things had a soul?

Answer 9

Yes

Vegetative soul - plants
Appetitive soul - animals
Rational souls - humans

Question 10

Descartes’ view of the soul

Answer 10

He was a substance dualist who believed that the mind and body were separate as they have different properties.

Question 11

Weaknesses of substance dualism

Answer 11

The mind and soul must have a connection to make you who you are.

The mind controls how the body functions and acts.

Your mind has the ability to adapt which may affect the outlook on the body.

Question 12

What is property dualism?

Answer 12

Belief that the mind and body are not completely different substances - there exists two distinct types of properties: mental and physical.

Question 13

What is reductive materialism?

Answer 13

Belief that the mind is not distinct from the physical brain but is instead identical with it meaning consciousness must die with death eg. the conscience would be a physical part of the body.

Question 14

Who does Gilbert Ryle criticize and what does he say?

Answer 14

He criticized Descartes and argued that he made a ‘category era’ as a substance must be a thing you could see - this is nonsensical.

He uses the term ‘ghost in the machine’

Question 15

What did Richard Dawkins believe about the soul?

Answer 15

Soul 1 = ‘mystic jelly’ (people believing in some form of afterlife)
Soul 2 - our personalities and collection of memory (who we are)

He took a more scientific approach believing that we are only ‘survival machines’.

Question 16

What does Richard Dawkins mean by the ‘selfish gene’?

Answer 16

Genes are here today as they were successful in the past and have been passed on generations.
We simply use these to adapt to our environment.

Question 17

What is Anthony Flew’s criticism of the soul?

Answer 17

He rejects the idea of the soul and calls it nonsensical as physical behaviors make us who we are.

He uses the example of the Cheshire cat to show how you cannot not have the smile. Similarly, there cannot be life after death as the body no longer behaves.

Question 18

What does Susan Blackmore believe about the soul?

Answer 18

She believes that when we describe consciousness we are actually describing something that isn’t there - delusion.

‘Soul’ is what describes what it is like to be a person.

Question 19

What does Keith Ward say about the soul?

Answer 19

He wrote a book that criticized scientists that reject the soul as he says without one, morality becomes a matter of choice and taste and we would simply just be animals.

Question 20

The Myth of Er

Answer 20

A story about someone who died and came back to life to tell stories of the afterlife - immortality of the soul.

Question 21

What is a category era?

Answer 21

Categorizing something wrong due to an incorrect assumption.

Question 22

Cogito Ergo Sum

Answer 22

‘I think therefore I am’ - Descartes

Question 23

What is David Hume’s criticism of Plato?

Answer 23

He argues that we can understand perfect things by experiencing imperfect things

This means he is against the world of the forms in relation to the soul

Question 24

What does Pinker believe about the soul?

Answer 24

He believes that neuroscience kills the soul as the mind simply exists in the physical world as a chain of events.

If a part of the brain stops then the whole brain stops which must explain human consciousness.

Question 25

What does Dennett say about substance dualism?

Answer 25

Substance dualism describes the mind as a cartesian theatre in which our bodies are simply the audience to our mind - there is no use to our bodies.