Soul, mind and body

Question 1

Define ‘dualism’

Answer 1

The division of something conceptually in two opposed or contrasted aspects (mind and body)

Question 2

What is the dualist view of the mind and body?

Answer 2

Mind - non-physical, controls and stimulates emotion, opinion and thoughts
Body - including brain matter where physical activity is conducted

Question 3

What is the view of materialists?

Answer 3

We are nothing more than the existence of our physical body

Question 4

What is substance dualism?

Answer 4

The name given to the view that the mind and body are separate substances but both exist

Question 5

Describe the components of substance dualism

Answer 5

Substance (a subject of various properties) and properties (cannot exist on their own) e.g. there is no such thing as ‘soft’ except something which is soft

Question 6

What do substance dualists believe about the mind and body?

Answer 6

The mind is the substance with thoughts, intentions and emotions as properties and the body is a substance, its property is extension, somehow the mind and body are attached to make a human being

Question 7

What did S, P and A (SPA) believe?

Answer 7

We have a non physical essence capable without a physical body , when we have brain damage from physical trauma our mental strength is compromised

Question 8

Aristotle: the soul is a (1) which remains the same during life despite (2). The soul is a (3) cause and “The (4) of animal life”

Answer 8

1 - substance
2 - physical changes
3 - formal
4 - principle

Question 9

What did Aristotle believe are the different kinds of soul?

Answer 9

Nutritive: plants to grow and flourish
Perceptive: animals, sense and react to stimuli
Higher: humans can reason

Question 10

Aristotle: the soul is not separate, it is the (1) of the body and gives the matter its (2), souls distinguish (3)

Answer 10

1 - capabilities
2 - form, efficiency and telos
3 - what’s living and what isn’t

Question 11

How did Aristotle describe how souls could distinguish what is living and what is not?

Answer 11

Used inanimate objects as examples, an axe with a soul has the capability to chop which wouldn’t be possible without the matter of an axe as the soul cannot survive without the body even after death

Question 12

Describe Plato’s belief of the soul

Answer 12

• Mind and body are two separate entities
• Soul is immortal so can remove itself from the body in the form of good
• Qualities depend on their opposites e.g. something is big because what it is compared to is small
• Our intuitions are evidence of knowledge attained from birth and shows we are part of the realm of forms

Question 13

Describe property dualism

Answer 13

There is only one kind of material, physical substance but there are two kinds of properties (mental and physical) which has size, shape and mass but also opinions, emotions and memories

Question 14

Describe emergent materialism

Answer 14

(type of property dualism) Physical things become more complex so new properties emerge from them which cannot be reduced simply to the material so the mind is in its own existence but is not completely separate from the physical body

Question 15

Who supports emergent materialism?

Answer 15

John Stuart Mill

Question 16

Describe reductive materialism

Answer 16

(a.k.a. identity theory) the mind is not distinct from the physical brain, it is identical to it. Mental states can be classified into different types e.g. memory, pain and desire. When chemical reactions happen in the brain we feel an emotion/ make a decision/ remember a fact depending on the type of mental event. No life after death.

Question 17

Edwin Boring: mental and physical events in the brain are (1), chemical reactions do not cause mental events but (2)

Answer 17

1 - identical with feelings

2 - are the mental events

Question 18

Why did Descartes pursue philosophy?

Answer 18

His mathematical expertise made him want philosophy to have equal precision, he believed all human knowledge has the scope to be interconnected though he was privately sceptical of religion

Question 19

Describe Descartes views

Answer 19

• Our world operates the same in its construction and laws of physics as any other universe
• Clear distinction between soul and body
• Couldn’t trust sense experience
• Rejected mathematical principles as we could be mistaken or God could be deceitful

Question 20

Descartes:
“(1)” to prove he couldn’t doubt existence as he had capability to (2). He was certain he had a mind but not a (3) because the mind is peculiar but (4)

Answer 20

1 - I think therefore I am
2 - think
3 - body
4 - the body depends on the mind so could be a deception

Question 21

What does Descartes believe connects the soul and the body?

Answer 21

The pineal gland in the brain is filled with animal spirits and controls movement and imagination

Question 22

Why did Gilbert Ryle criticise the view that the mind and body are distinctive?

Answer 22

Team spirit cannot be seen as a matter but exists the same as the mind so the mind and body are functions of a person but not separate

Question 23

What does Richard Dawkins believe?

Answer 23

No part of a person is not physical, there is no life after death because consciousness dies with the body, humans are chemicals and genes to survive

Question 24

How did Dawkins describe the ways of understanding the soul?

Answer 24

Soul one: viewpoint of distinctive separation and knowing God with the afterlife
Soul two: personality and individuality (Dawkins)

Question 25

Give a quote from Aristotle

Answer 25

“To attain any assured knowledge of the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world”