Soul, mind and body

Question 1

Property dualism

Answer 1

There’s only physical substance, but this gas two different properties - physical and mental

Question 2

Materialism

Answer 2

Our physicality’s are all we are

Question 3

Dualism

Answer 3

The view that there are two different types of existence - mental and physical

Question 4

Plato’s view of the soul

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Substance dualism

Answer 5

The mind and body are part of the same entity but are different substances.

Mental = thinking
Physical = taking up space

Question 6

Aristotles view of the soul

Answer 6

Weak dualist
Soul animates the body

Question 7

Plato’s argument of opposites

Answer 7

There is an infinite chain of life and death

Question 8

Aristotle’s wax stamp analogy

Answer 8

Wax is the body but the stamp (soul) seals and brings wax ‘to life’

Question 9

Aristotles three souls

Answer 9

Vegetative = growing
Appetitive soul = desire
Rational soul = reason (sets us apart from plants and animals)

Question 10

Descartes view of the soul

Answer 10

Substance dualism

Body and soul are separate materials but connected by the pineal gland

Question 11

Descartes quote

Answer 11

“I think therefore I am”

Our ability to reason provides us with evidence that we exist

Question 12

Gilbert Ryle

Answer 12

Criticises Descartes and argues that he made a ‘category error’ as a substance must be a physical thing

Question 13

Gilbert Ryle quote

Answer 13

“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.

Question 14

Flew’s view of the soul

Answer 14

Against the soul - our physical features make us who we are

Question 15

Flew’s analogy

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Blackmore’s view of the soul

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Ward’s view of the soul

Answer 17

Criticised scientists who reject the soul as he states that without one, morality becomes a matter of choice and we’d simply be animals

Question 18

Reductive materialism

Answer 18

The mind is identical to the brain

Question 19

Category error

Answer 19

Categorising something wrong due to an incorrect assumption

Question 20

The Myth of Er

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Tripartite soul

Answer 21

Plato’s idea

The soul has 3 parts; reason, emotion and desire

When desire loses control the soul comes to earth

Question 22

Dawkins’s view of the soul

Answer 22

Rejects the soul/afterlife

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

Question 23

Pinker’s view of the soul

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Dennet’s view of the soul

Answer 24

Substance dualism describes the mind as a cartesian theatre - where the mind is a TV that our bodies are the audience of.

Question 25

Hume’s criticism of Plato

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Gilbert Ryle criticism

Answer 26

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.

Answer 27

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.