Soul, mind and body Flashcards
1
Q
Which philosophers are substance dualists?
A
Plato and Descartes
2
Q
What does Plato believe about the soul, mind and body?
A
- -In his work ‘Phaedo’, Plato believes the soul has knowledge of eternal ideas and is able to recognise forms such as beauty.
- -In the dialogue ‘Meno’, Plato used the example of Socrates questioning a slave boy about geometrical problems he has never faced before. The slave’s answers demonstrate an awareness of Pythagoras’ theorem, which shows that the soul has knowledge form its prior existence. Learning is therefore merely remembering.
- -The body and soul are opposites, however they rely on each other. Plato argues that death is an event for the soul to leave the body.
- -The Chariot Analogy: A man is riding with two chariots (representing appetites), one is bad and the other is good. The bad one leads us to bad actions while the good does the opposite. The person is good if his soul is balanced with reason at the helm. So the soul works best when the ‘reason’ is in charge.
3
Q
What does Descartes believe about the soul, mind and body?
A
- -17th century French Philosopher, Rene Descartes, adopted a method known as ‘hyperbolic doubt’- rejecting everything he couldn’t be certain of.
- -Descartes had 3 basic doubts: he didn’t trust his senses as all the things he had sensed during his life could’ve been an illusion or a dream. He doubted basic maths too as our reasoning behind our answers could be wrong. Finally he doubted God too as he could be deceiving us.
- -Descartes explained the possibilities of an evil demon deceiving us into thinking everything that is wrong in the world is actually right. However he didn’t seriously believe in this demon but he used this example to show that we can’t be 100% sure that we are actually being deceived.
- -In his book, ‘Meditations’ (1641), only thing he couldn’t doubt was his existence as a thinker, as he couldn’t think if he didn’t exist. This is known as the ‘First Certainty’, “I think, therefore I am”.
- -Descartes believed the mind and the body were two distinct substances. The mind is unique so we can’t doubt its existence, whereas the existence of the body can be doubted. He explained they’re not the same thing as they have such different properties (of thought and extension).
4
Q
What is Descartes famous quote?
A
In his book, ‘Meditations’ (1641), only thing he couldn’t doubt was his existence as a thinker, as he couldn’t think if he didn’t exist. This is known as the ‘First Certainty’, “I think, therefore I am”.
5
Q
Which philosophers are materialists?
A
Aristotle, Gilbert Ryle and Richard Dawkins
6
Q
What does Aristotle believe about the soul, mind and body?
A
- -In his treatise ‘De Anima’ (‘On the soul’), Aristotle believed the soul and body are not separate, but instead the soul is the formal cause of the body.
- -It’s the characteristics and attributes that we each have. It’s not an extra part of us that exists.
- -The body is the raw material; (like the marble of a sculpture) while the soul is the form (like characteristics of the sculpture when finished). The soul can’t be divided from the body and the body isn’t just a prison for the soul like Plato thinks. It’s an essential part of us, so we are the body and soul.
7
Q
Explain the 3 different types of souls every living creature has?
A
He also believed that every type of living creature has a soul.
1. Humans have a soul with human properties. Aristotle suggested that our soul is made up of an irrational part and a rational part. The irrational part is made of abilities that plants and animals have, it’s made up of vegetable elements and an appetite element.
2. Plants have only the vegetable element which allows them to gain nutrition.
3. Animals have both the vegetable and appetite elements which allows them to have movements and desires.
(However Aristotle believes human souls are different as they have the ability to reason, which differentiates us from the animals).
8
Q
What does Gilbert Ryle believe about the soul, mind and body?
A
- -In his book ‘The concept of Mind’ (1949), Gilbert Ryle (1900-76), called traditional mind and body distinctions as a ‘category mistake’. Ryle argued any talk of a ‘soul’ existing beyond the physical body is a mistake in the way we use language.
- -Someone commits a ‘category error’ when they treat the mind and body as if they’re two different things of a similar logical kind when in fact they’re not in the same logical category. Ryle argues the idea of the soul leaving our body after death doesn’t fit with what we know about psychology and neuroscience.
- -He believed saying that we have a separate mind and body is like a ‘Ghost in the machine’. It sounds like we’re physical machines, operated by some sort of invisible mind (the ghost).
- -Believes that Descartes makes a category mistake in assuming something that is additional to the body and its behaviour. They’re in the same logical category.
9
Q
Give two examples that Ryle’s uses to back up his point
A
- -He used an example of someone visiting oxford uni. He is given a tour, and he asks “Where is the University?” Just as the visitor makes a category mistake in thinking that the uni was something more than he had already seen.
- -Another example he uses is a spectator in a cricket match. The man sees the cricketers, other spectators, the equipment’s and etc. but then he asks “where is the team spirit?” He also makes a category mistake in believing that the ‘team spirit’ was additional to the match itself.
- -Just as the team spirit isn’t found in addition to the team but is a way of describing how the team works, the ‘soul’ isn’t an addition to the physical person but a way of describing a person’s functions.
10
Q
What does Richard Dawkins believe about the soul, mind and body?
A
- -Modern materialist’s views, such as Richard Dawkins, assume that there is no part of a person that is non-physical. They believe that the consciousness cannot be separated from the brain, because for the materialist nothing exists except matter.
- -For them there is no such thing as an ‘afterlife’ as once the brain has died, the consciences must also end.
- -In his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ (1976), Dawkins proposed that humans are nothing more than survival machines- ‘robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes’ (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene). And he completely discounts the idea that humans have any kind of soul to distinguish them from other species. Humans, like other living creatures, are the vehicles of genes, which are only interested in replicating themselves in order to survive into the next generation.
- -Dawkins’ point was that humans don’t have an immortal soul and are instead a mixture of chemicals.
11
Q
Explain Dawkins soul 1 and soul 2
A
Dawkins wrote about ‘soul one and soul two’, by which he meant two different ways of understanding the soul:
- Soul one: a separate spiritual part of a person which is capable of knowing God and surviving death. This is a concept which Dawkins rejects.
- Soul two: It has nothing to do with the possibilities of life after death or any idea that people have some kind of connection with anything divine or supernatural. Dawkins argues that this is a meaningful way of describing ourselves provided we are clear that this doesn’t refer to a separate thing.
12
Q
What does Dawkins argue about the idea of a ‘soul’?
A
- -Dawkins argues that the idea of a ‘soul’ is a mythological concept invented by the ancients to explain the mysteries of consciousness and human personalities. He doesn’t believe that we need any additional supernatural ‘soul’ to explain this, nor any belief of a life after death to make sense of what we are as humans.
- -In his book ‘River out of Eden’ (1995), Dawkins explains ‘there is no spirit-driven life force’, and ‘life is just bytes and bytes of digital information’.
13
Q
Explain some criticisms of substance dualism
A
Critics of Descartes’ substance dualism argue he’s done nothing to demonstrate that the mind is a substance. They also argue how the mind and body interact in the way that they do:
- —-When our body is in pain, it causes mental consequences such as distress.
- —-Substance dualism can’t explain how mental thoughts can cause physical response, such as how my feeling of embarrassment can cause me to physically blush.
- —-Substance dualism creates what is known as the ‘problem of other minds’: if the mind is separate from the body, then we can only perceive that other people have bodies but we have no way of knowing whether they have a mind.
- -In his book, ‘Merely Mortal: Can you survive your own death’ (2001), Antony Flew argues that talk of life after death, where the soul outlives the body and carries on by itself is wrong. He compares it to the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carrolls’ ’Alice’s adventure in Wonderland’ (1865), where the cat slowly disappeared until there was nothing left of it but its grin. This concept is silly because it would be impossible for there to be a grin on its own, without a face to put it on. Carroll is playing with the idea that a grin could be a ‘thing in itself’, a substance.
- -Flew uses this analogy to speak of someone’s mind, or soul, or personality, as if it were a ‘substance’ is a misuse of the term. For Flew, to refer to a mind or a soul is to refer to the behaviour of the material, physical person, and no more- so there couldn’t be a survival of the mind or soul after death of the physical body, because the physical body no longer has any behaviour.
- -People often feel naturally drawn to substance dualism, but it doesn’t make the theory true. We talk as if we have minds and bodies as separate things, but this doesn’t prove anything. In their book, ‘The philosophy of mind’ (1986), Peter Smith and O.R. Jones gives examples of how we might talk about somebody’s ‘sake’ or somebody’s ‘build’. For example, we might say we’re going to have supper later for Jill’s sake, as she missed the train; or we might say that Jack needed a shirt with longer sleeves because of his build. But, this doesn’t mean that Jill could be separated from her ‘sake’ or Jack could go out without his ‘build’. The distinction between mental and physical properties isn’t always as clear as substance dualist suggest.
- -Dualism doesn’t satisfactory answer questions of how the mind and body interconnect; how does a decision to greet a friend result in physically smiling and waving, if the mind and the body are so distinct?
- -It’s hard for someone trying to find out whether our mind is separate from the body, as they’re looking for something immaterial and not at clear as to how they would know when they have found it. Hume raised this difficulty: even when we’re personally aware that we are individual thinking beings, this doesn’t help to establish that our thinking nature is separate from our physical nature.
14
Q
Explain some criticisms of materialism
A
- -Some might argue that we can see a flaw in materialism if we think about the way we use language. We might talk about ‘Emily’ and also about ’Emily’s body’ but the term aren’t used in exactly the same way. We wouldn’t say ‘Emily’s body went to the theatre’ as this would imply that her mind was elsewhere.
- -Descartes’ criticism of materialisms is that the mind and body can’t be identical as they have such different properties. The mind has no extension, but the body does. The body doesn’t have thoughts, but the mind does. If two substances are identical, then surely they should have the same properties, not mutually exclusive ones.
- -Richard Swinburne defend the Christian belief that we have souls which are distinct from physical bodies and which are capable of survival after death. Swinburne, in his book, ‘The evolution of the soul’ (1997), explains his belief that the soul and the body are distinct from each other, so that the soul is capable of surviving even when the body is destroyed. In Swinburne’s view, human soul is unique in that it’s capable of logical, ordered and complex thoughts. The soul is aware of its own freedom to make choices, and also aware of moral obligation. Our souls helps us to differentiate between right and wrong.
- -Keith Ward’s book ‘Defending the soul’ (1992) is written as a response to scientists who claim that we are just physical beings. He believes that without belief in the soul, morality becomes simply a matter of personal choice. Ward claimed that believing our soul comes from God is important for us to progress and to achieve that special dignity (self-worth) of being human rather than simply animal. Without the soul, humanity loses any sense of final purpose and sanctity of life. It devalues our lives by making it pointless.
15
Q
Is the concept of ‘soul’ better understood metaphorically or as reality?
A
- -The possible problem with distinctions between the soul and the body could be because the soul is being taken too literally when applied to a human person.
- -We can speak of a ‘soul’ metaphorically, such as “I put my heart and soul into this project!” Perhaps, then the whole concept of the ‘soul’ is better understood as a metaphor. Because then it avoids problems when the idea is taken literally, of exactly where the soul is located or how it’s attached to the body or where it comes from.
- -The problem with this is that it can be difficult to know how it’s meant to be understood. If it means different things to different people, there’s no way of telling whether either is correct.
