Soul, mind and body

Question 1

Monists

Answer 1

body and soul are united and can not be separate

Question 2

Dualist

Answer 2

2 aspects of human beings : physical body and non- physical soul

Question 3

Materialists

Answer 3

humans made of one substance the physical body they reject life after death

Question 4

Substance dualism

Answer 4

2 elements : body and soul are wholly different substances

Question 5

Prince and the Cobbler

Answer 5

In one of his most suggestive stories, Locke imagined that a cobbler dies and after his death, the consciousness of a prince enters the cobbler’s body. This person remembers all of the prince’s past experiences and none of the cobbler’s. We would say that the prince now occupies the body of the cobbler.

Question 6

Plato’s view on the soul

Answer 6

• separate from the body as the body is controlled by unreliable senses and constantly changing whilst the soul is permanent and eternal
• superior to the body
• linked to / lives in the WOF
• essential , immaterial part of human life
• intutition is evidence of soul

Question 7

Meno’s slave boy

Answer 7

An uneducated slave boy of Meno’s is shown to be capable of recognising the right answer to a mathematical problem that he has never (in this life) heard before (Meno 81a-86b). Socrates is keen to stress that the boy arrives at the right answer by himself through a series of questions.

Question 8

Myth of er

Answer 8

story of a soldier, Er, who is thought to be dead and descends to the underworld. But when he revives he is sent back to tell humanity what awaits them in the afterlife. Er describes an afterlife where the just are rewarded and the wicked are punished.

Question 9

Tripartite view of the soul and chariot analogy

Answer 9

reason is the charioteer , emotion and appetite are horses

Question 10

Aristotle’s view on the soul - Wax seal

Answer 10

• soul can not be separated from the body e.g imprint of a wax seal can not be separated from the wax which it is imprinted

Question 11

Aristotle view on the soul - Causes

Answer 11

he observed that everything was made of matter ( material cause) and had a form ( formal cause ). the body is the material cause whereas the soul is the formal cause . The soul animates the body and gives it its characteristics and form seen in his book DE ANIMA ( on the soul)

Question 12

Three abilties of every life form soul Aristotle

Answer 12

Vegetative - characterstics of growing ( plants)
Appetitve -ability to act and fulfil the desires for food and reproduction ( animal)
Rational - intellectual ability ( humans)

Question 13

Blade and the handle of an axe

Answer 13

For example, the blade and handle of an axe are like the body; the form or soul is its ability to chop. The axe would not be an axe with only the matter, it needs the form (or soul) to be what it is.

Question 14

Eye is the soul of the body

Answer 14

Aristotle’s analogy is used to explain the nature of the soul and it’s relation to the body. The eye, he says, is only an eye if it fulfills its purpose by having the ability of sight. In the same way, the body is only such if it has a soul

Question 15

extension

Answer 15

body is extended .. it takes up space and can be measured but it does not have the properties of thought

Question 16

properties

Answer 16

the abilties of something e.g the minds properties are intentions , feelings , emotions …

Question 17

Descartes

Answer 17

SUBSTANCE DUALIST argued that reality or existence is divided into two parts. He argued that humanity could be divided into two parts as well: the mind and the body. He saw the mind and the physical body as two distinct entities.

Question 18

Hyperbolic doubt

Answer 18

Descartes questioned everything that could be known and rejected them if there was any doubt at all e.g sense experience , maths ( mind demons)

Question 19

Cogito Ergo Sum

Answer 19

i think therfore i am - the only thing descartes could be sure of was the fact he was a thinking being .. he was unsure if he had a body so mind and body were seperate

Question 20

Pineal Gland

Answer 20

D belived the gland had something to do with the connection between the soul and body
My view is that this [pineal] gland is the principal seat of the soul, and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. The reason I believe this is that I cannot find any part of the brain, except this, which is not double.

Question 21

Gilbert Ryle

Answer 21

dismissed dualism , best known work on the concept of the mind

Question 22

ghost in the machine Ryle

Answer 22

the “ghost” of the mind giving life to the “machine” of the body does not exist .

Question 23

Category error

Answer 23

descartes is guilty of making a category error

Question 24

Ryle - university

Answer 24

tour of cambridge university the person see all the different facilties and at the end of the tour asks where is the university ?

Question 25

Ryle - team spirit

Answer 25

at a cricket game see the stands , crowds , players asks where is the team spirit ?

Question 26

Ryle - military

Answer 26

a boy is at a miltary parade , a division is marching by , someone points out another squad … he asks when will the divisons arrive.

Question 27

Biological factors linked to mental health

Answer 27

body and soul are not separate?
e.g brain and immune system are linked by some vessels in schizophrenia

Question 28

Dawkins

Answer 28

Dawkins is a scientist and materialist. He argues that our current scientific view of what we are is that we are merely material physical beings composed of DNA. That’s all there is scientific evidence for, therefore we shouldn’t believe in anything supernatural such as a soul.

Question 29

Dawkins view on the soul

Answer 29

MATERIALIST Dawkins argued there are two types of soul – one valid the other invalid. Soul 1 is the view that the soul is a real thing separate from our body, which Dawkins rejects due to lack of evidence. Soul 2 is a metaphorical idea of the soul, as a metaphor for the deep part of our mind and personality where the essence of our humanity is. For example, someone who doesn’t believe in a soul might still say “I felt that in my soul” or “Hitler was a soulless person”. They are just using the term ‘soul’ metaphorically for our deep important human feelings, not for some non-physical part of (soul 1). Dawkins thinks that everything about us, including our minds and consciousness, is nothing more than biological processes in our body and brain.