Soul, mind and body Flashcards
Property dualism
There’s only physical substance, but this gas two different properties - physical and mental
Materialism
Our physicality’s are all we are
Dualism
The view that there are two different types of existence - mental and physical
Plato’s view of the soul
Dualist
Our soul was in World of the Forms before we were born, hence recollection of perfect forms.
The physical world is an appearance so our body isn’t part of the real world.
Substance dualism
The mind and body are part of the same entity but are different substances.
Mental = thinking
Physical = taking up space
Aristotles view of the soul
Weak dualist
Soul animates the body
Plato’s argument of opposites
There is an infinite chain of life and death
Aristotle’s wax stamp analogy
Wax is the body but the stamp (soul) seals and brings wax ‘to life’
Aristotles three souls
All living things have souls.
Vegetative = growing
Appetitive soul = desire
Rational soul = reason (sets us apart from plants and animals)
Descartes view of the soul
Substance dualism
Body and soul are separate materials (as they have different properties) but connected by the pineal gland
Descartes quote
“I think therefore I am”
Our ability to reason provides us with evidence that we exist
Gilbert Ryle
Criticises Descartes and argues that he made a ‘category error’ as a substance must be a physical thing
Gilbert Ryle quote
“Ghost in the machine” the “ghost” of the mind gives life to the “machine” of the body.
SO Descartes is suggesting we must be out of control of our bodies.
Flew’s view of the soul
Against the soul - our physical features make us who we are
Flew’s analogy
Cheshire Cat analogy - you can’t have a smile without a face in the same way you can’t have a mind without a body
Blackmore’s view of the soul
Science has left no room for an idea of the soul
It is our personality that makes us who we are, the ‘soul’ is a metaphor for this
Ward’s view of the soul
Criticised scientists who reject the soul as he states that without one, morality becomes a matter of choice and we’d simply be animals
Reductive materialism
The mind is identical to the brain
Category error
Categorising something wrong due to an incorrect assumption
The Myth of Er
Plato’s myth
Soldier (Er) dies in battle, his body did not decompose. He came bak to life telling everyone he experienced the afterlife and souls were judged.
Tripartite soul
Plato’s idea
The soul has 3 parts; reason, emotion and desire
When desire loses control the soul comes to earth
Dawkins’s view of the soul
Rejects the soul/afterlife as he believes we don’t need a supernatural explanation for the achievements of evolution.
Humanities only purpose is to pass on the ‘selfish gene’ (effective genes) as we are “survival machines”
Soul 1 = mysterious life after death
Soul 2 = our personality
Pinker’s view of the soul
The mind/brain is not a concept but a physical entity.
Science proves that the mind and body are physically linked. if a part of the brain dies a physical part of the human dies too.
Dennet’s criticism of substance dualism
Substance dualism describes the mind as a cartesian theatre - where the mind is a TV that our bodies are the audience of.
Hume’s criticism of Plato
We can actually invent the idea of perfection ourselves – even though we haven’t experienced it. We take our idea of imperfections and simply imagine them without the imperfection.
Gilbert Ryle criticism
The claim that the mind is not a ‘thing’ seems extreme. My mind ‘feels’ like a thing – it seems that my mind exists as a thing.
David Chalmers
‘the easy problem of consciousness’ and ‘the hard problem of consciousness’
The ‘easy problem of consciousness’ means figuring out which brain process is responsible for which mental process
The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ refers to what brain process is responsible for consciousness.
Chalmers says that neuroscience has helped with solving the easy problem but not the hard.
So, scientists like Dawkins can’t claim to know that consciousness is just a physical bodily thing.
Dawkins quote
“Survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve selfish molecules known as genes”
Pinker quote
“Cognitive neuroscience has pretty much killed the soul”
Plato’s slave boy story
In his book Meno.
Uneducated slave boy is able to solve maths equations with little help. Plato uses this to support the idea that he is recollecting the sums from the world of the forms.
Anamnesis (Plato)
The recollection of knowledge, possibly obtained in a previous state of existence.
Plato’s premises and conclusions
- We have a concept of perfect things.
-These concepts are beyond our material world.
-SO there must be something immaterial in us which has previously accessed the world of the forms.
Plato’s charioteer analogy
Charioteer = reason
Horse 1 = desire
Horse 2 = reason
If the charioteer loses control of the horses, then the soul is dragged from the world of the forms into the body.
Scientific criticism of Descartes
The pineal gland produces hormones to the body - it does not connect the mind and body.
