Soul, mind and body 2

Question 1

What is Plato’s take on the soul?

Answer 1

Dualism

Question 2

Describe Plato’s theory of the Forms.

Answer 2

Notices a decay in nature, but thinks our minds are immortal. We are trapped in an imperfect body, the soul has a desire to leave to go to the realm of the Forms.

Question 3

Talk about the significance of Heraclitus’ famous quote to Plato.

Answer 3

‘you cannot step in the same river twice’- if permanence cannot be found in the physical world, it must exist in another world. The soul must be immortal to experience this.

Question 4

Describe Plato’s charioteer metaphor.

Answer 4

There are divisions in the soul:
Appetitive (greed) - black horse
Spirited (our virtues) - white horse
Rational (intellectual) - charioteer guiding.
(tripartite view on the soul)
The black horse dies, the physical body goes to the Horaton. Virtues white horse goes to the Noeton (soul).

Question 5

Describe Plato’s hatred to the physical body.

Answer 5

‘the body is the source of endless trouble’.
It’s lustful, hungry, fearful. It is like a prison, like the cave is in the cave analogy.

Question 6

What is the advantage to Plato’s thinking?

Answer 6

Highlights individuality of people, Freud’s Id, Ego, Superego

Question 7

What are the weaknesses to Plato’s thinking?

Answer 7

Is the soul no longer complete when we die?
Pleasure isn’t always bad.
Doesn’t touch on how soul and body interact. If the soul goes to the Forms, how can it see the Forms? Sight is associated with the physical body.

Question 8

What is Descartes’ take on the soul?

Answer 8

Substance Dualism (mind and body are two completely different substances, so are distinct from one another).

Question 9

What was Descartes’ earliest take on the soul, that he later disputed?

Answer 9

Earliest work, Le Monde, said there was no ‘earthly substance’ or ‘heavenly substance’. Everything is made of the same substance.

Question 10

Give a Descartes quote that backs up his substance dualism.

Answer 10

‘The body, by nature is divisible, but the mind is not’ (Meditations)
If someone got an amputation, they would have less of a body, but the mind always stays the same.

Question 10

Why can Descartes be disagreed with?

Answer 10

Some people’s minds are arguably divisible.
People get Dementia, and children’s brains take a while to fully develop. Are they less of a person if they have less of a mind?
Mind can also be mistaken.

Question 10

What made Descartes dispute earlier thinking of the soul?

Answer 10

Realised that our senses could be mistaken. Approached problem with scepticism and found out that the mind was the ‘first certainty’- ‘cogito ergo sum’.
We could all be in a ‘dreamworld’, agreeing with Plato, all we can be certain of is the mind.

Question 10

What is an advantage to substance dualism?

Answer 10

People describe having ‘out of body experiences’.

Question 10

Describe Descartes talk about substances and properties.

Answer 10

Says a substance has properties, properties cannot exist without the substance.
A rug would be the substance, its property would be being soft.
Substance dualists think that the mind is a substance and that its emotions are properties.
But the body is a substance with the property of ‘extension’ (taking up space) that the mind doesn’t. They both make the ‘self’.

Question 11

What does Descartes think is the ‘principle seat of the soul’ and why?

Answer 11

The Pineal gland, as most areas in the body are double, two eyes, two arms, but pineal gland is central, the connecting point to the body and soul.

Question 11

Who is the main critic of Descartes?

Answer 11

Ryle- ‘Category error’. Like taking someone to Cambridge University, they look at libraries, colleges and the person goes, ‘where is the University?’- not logical to separate the mind from the body.
Describes it as the ‘ghost in the machine’, acting as though the soul is like having a ghost in a laptop.
But the body experiences things physically and mentally, phantom limbs (still feel pain even though it is gone).
(Criticised for being reductionist)

Question 11

Who else criticise dualism?

Answer 11

Peter Geach and G.E.M. Anscombe

Question 12

What is Peter Geach’s criticism of Dualism?

Answer 12

‘it is a savage superstition to suppose that a man consists of two pieces, body and soul’.
How could the soul see the forms if it is linked to sight?

Question 13

What is Anscombe’s criticism of Dualism?

Answer 13

‘bodily act is an act of man qua spirit’- the body and spirit work symbiotically together. When we are typing on a laptop, our mind is thinking of what to say, but we are physically typing it.

Question 14

How does Siddhartha Gautama show the problem of dualism?

Answer 14

He starved himself to reach peak enlightenment, but before he passed away he realised we needed food to nourish our mind.

Question 15

What is Aristotle?

Answer 15

An empiricist

Question 16

What three types of soul did Aristotle identify?

Answer 16

Vegetative soul- shared by all living things.
Appetitive- passions, appetites, emotions, shared by animals.
Intellectual soul- reasoning, possessed only by humans.

Question 17

What is the significance of Aristotle’s four causes?

Answer 17

Material cause is matter something is made out of and the Final cause is somethings purpose.
Is a dualist, separated soul and body. Material is body, and final is spark/essence of a person. (soul).

Question 18

What examples of the soul does Aristotle embed?

Answer 18

If the body was the eye- its soul would be to see.
Axe- to chop.
Wax-seal, wax is the soul, breaks when the letter opens. The soul died with the body (empiricism).

Question 19

What is a scientific criticism to Aristotle’s idea of the death of a soul?

Answer 19

When we die, the body loses 21 grams of mass.

Question 20

Which philosophers agree with Aristotle and why?

Answer 20

Peter Geach- ‘the only tenable conception of the soul’.
Aquinas- ‘soul is defined as the first principle of life’.
Living things are ‘animate’, dead things are ‘inanimate’.
The soul is not ‘me’, just the spark.

Question 21

What is materialism?

Answer 21

The idea that all we can rely on is science.

Question 22

What does Dawkins say about the soul?

Answer 22

Mocks Plato and Descartes, but acknowledges the mystery of consciousness, but thinks it will eventually be proven through DNA.
Defines two types of soul- Soul One (traditional idea of the soul, Platonic), Soul 2 (Aristotelean ideas).
Selfish genes, we have the potential to have immortal souls passed on through DNA. Metaphorical.

Question 23

What is Behaviourism?

Answer 23

Type of materialism.
Skinner.
Thoughts are learnt behaviour learnt through conditioning and reinforcement.
Reward for dogs is positive reinforcement, but you can have the argument that we are more complex than animals.

Question 24

What is the evidence for behaviourism?

Answer 24

Watson and Rayner (1920)- would show a child animals but make a large banging noise whenever it was shown. Baby eventually developed a phobia.
Pavlov’s dog- would salivate whenever shown food, but even when jaw was removed, would salivate at food despite no longer having the capability to eat.
(Criticised for being reductionist).
Dennet criticises Skinner saying we are more complex than this.

Question 25

What is emergent materialism?

Answer 25

John Stuart Mill- we are only getting more complex because of evolution. The higher intellectual aspects of humans are purely from evolution.
Can be criticised, the world is arguably getting worse- we have things like climate change.