Soul, mind and body Flashcards
philosophical language and thought
psyche
-Greek for mind/ soul
dualism
-belief in two seperate elements
1. soul
2. body
substance dualism
-two elements which are wholly different substances
1. body
2. soul
reductionism
-everything can be reduced to statements about physical bodies
behaviourism
-all mental states are learned behaviours
monism
-one substance, not two
materialism
-one substance and it’s material
Noeton
-realm of reality
-world of perfect concepts
-world of true knowledge
Horton
-realm of appearance
-our world
-world of senses, opinion, decay and change
Plato
-sought for something permanent and certain
-if performance cannot be found in this material world, it must exist in another world
-soul = essential and immaterial part of a human
-soul must be immortal in order to experience
-has no beginning or end and is seperate from this world
soul descrpition: Plato
-soul goes to Neoton – other world, disembodied
-soul is perfect, eternal, intelligible, divine, unchangeable and indissoluble
-described in phaedo (Plato’s book)
-soul is reborn into a new body (reincarnation), embodied existence after body
-supports both disembodied (out of body) and (in body) embodied argument
divisions of the soul: Plato
- appetitive - bodily needs (food, sex)
- spirited - our will/virtues (courage)
- rational - intellectual thinking, seeking truth
-rational takes control of irrational parts, can live a virtuous life
Charioteer metaphor
-found in Phaedrus (Plato’s book)
-shows personalities
-charioteer – takes charge, is the rational element on the soul
-black horse – is the appetitive bodily needs, dies with body
-white horse – virtues, spirited elements, leads rational soul to Neoton
The body: Horaton
-Plato = negative about the body
-body = prison to soul
-“the body is the source of endless treasure”
-“takes away from us all power of thinking at all”
-4 reasons why he disdains body
1. constantly requires food - holds back soul from knowledge, soul wants to be free from empiricism, illusion and ignorance
2. fears and endless foolery - fight or flight
3. diseases - constantly holding soul back
4. fills us with love and lusts - distracts soul
defences of Plato
-Augustine adopted and adapted Plato’s dualism and applied it to Christian theology, saw tripartite soul as a useful way to explain internal conflict and the pursuit of virtue
-Freud (wasn’t directly influenced by Plato), division of psyche into ID (appetitive), ego (rational) and superego (spirited) mirror Plato’s tripartite soul
-Aquinas, built on Plato’s ideas, affirmed soul’s rational aspect as eternal and central moral development, repeated idea that the soul must direct the body towards virtuous ends
-moral development, rational part of the soul is necessary for moral and intellectual growth, which aligns with our experience of striving toward virtue and wisdom
criticisms of Plato
-Aristotle rejected the seperation of soul and body, argued that the soul is the form of the body, not a seperate, immortal entity. the soul and body are interdependent, soul can’t exist without the body
-Dawkins rejects concept of immortal soul, argues that ideas of a soul/ divided psyche are unfounded in biology and evolutionary theory
-Hume, argued that the self (soul) isn’t a unified, immaterial entity but rather a bundle of perceptions and experiences, contradicts Plato’s view of the soul as an enduring, rational substance
substance dualism: Descartes
-supporter of Plato
-rationalist
-asks questions – is there any knowledge so certain that no one may doubt it?
-senses and sense experience may be mistaken and can be mistaken, material world and body = an illusion
-‘ergo cogito sum’ = i think therefore i am, only certain of mind
-body and soul are wholly seperate substances
-“there is a very great difference between a mind and a body, a body is by nature divisible, but mind is not” - meditations
-concluded that only one certain piece of knowledge – the cogito
Gilbert Ryle
-‘ghost in the machine’ - criticise dualism and concept of the mind
-states it is a category mistake, mistakenly treating something as being of one type when it is a different type
-experience = both physical and mental, improper to seperate the body and soul
-Descartes idea of a ‘mind as pilot of body, body itself as a mechanism’ is called a category error by Ryle
-provides conceptual clarity – makes it clearer – body and soul aren’t seperate, putting them into seperate categories is a mistake
Aristotle
-soul doesn’t survive after death, no separate unity
-hylomorphic understanding of the soul (as the form of the body)
-uses formal cause (gives something it’s shape and nature) to explain soul – the body is animated by the soul, it gives it life therefore, the soul is the formal cause of humans
-no person left, just matter
-examples – eye gives us the capacity to see, axe allows for us to cut things
wax and stamp analogy
-stamp can’t be separated away from the wax, they’re inseparable
-just like how the soul can’t be separated from the body
elements of the soul
-three parts to the soul
1. vegetative, all living things, growth and
reproduction
2. appetitive, animals and humans, desires, urges and emotions
3. intellectual, unique to humans, reasoning, thinking, remembering and deciding
-plants are only vegetative, animals are vegetative and appetitive and humans are vegetative, appetitive and intellectual
is Aristotle a dualist or a monist?
-most scholars agree that Aristotle is a dualist – he talks about the body and soul being separate with different qualities and understandings
-states they’re dependant on each other, when the body dies so does the soul
defences of Aristotle
-Aquinas, argues that the soul isn’t material and the soul and body therefore are unified substance, not separate entities, emphasised that the soul is immaterial and immortal, responsible for rational thought. however, still needs the body to function fully (sensing/learning)
-MacIntyre, defends Aristotle’s holistic view of human nature (ties in the soul, mind and body), emphasises that Aristotle’s account avoids Cartesian dualism (Descartes), provides framework for understanding human beings as rational animals, rationality is deeply embedded in our physical and social existence
-Nussbaum, defended Aristotle’s concept of the soul as essential to understanding human function and ethics, Aristotle’s functionalist account (viewing soul as the organising principle of body) isn’t reductive but offers a framework to understand human nature
-Ryle, indirectly supports Aristotle’s holistic approach, his rejection of “ghost in the machine” aligns with Aristotle’s view that the soul and body aren’t separate substances but interlinked
