Soul, Mind And Body

Question 1

Give 5 characteristics of Plato’s body

Answer 1

Can change
Temporary
Physical
Controlled by the senses
Made up of parts

Question 2

Give 5 characteristics of Plato’s soul

Answer 2

Unchanging
Eternal
Immaterial
Capable of reason
Indivisible

Question 3

What are Plato’s arguments to justify that the body and the soul are two separate things?

Answer 3

Argument from opposites
Argument from recollection
The slave boy
Body/soul conflict

Question 4

Weakness of the argument from opposites

Answer 4

Plato is making an assumption that the soul is the opposite of the body, and not everything has an opposite.

Question 5

Weakness of the argument from recollection

Answer 5

Suffers from the same disadvantages as beliefs in the Forms - relies on a belief in that theory.

Peter Geach - seeing is a physical process - how can the mind see the forms?

Question 6

Weakness of body/soul conflict

Answer 6

Inner conflict could be down to personality or a lack of maturity

Maybe our upbringing or our DNA makes us more easily swayed by desires or emotions

Question 7

Example used for Plato’s argument from recollection

Answer 7

The slave boy

Question 8

Example used for Plato’s belief on body/soul conflict

Answer 8

The charioteer of reason controlling our emotion and appetite, which are the horses.

Question 9

What is a substance dualist?

Answer 9

They believe that the soul and the body are two separate things

Question 10

What is monism?

Answer 10

The belief that the body and soul are one single unity that cannot be separated.

Question 11

What argument did Aristotle use to back monism?

Answer 11

The wax seal imprint - it is inseparable from the wax.

Question 12

Why might Christians reject monism?

Answer 12

Monism states that the soul cannot be separated from the body, which means that the soul cannot move onto the afterlife, which we would call heaven. Therefore, life after death is not a thing, and the dead body/soul would return to a lump of matter.

Question 13

Give two examples that Aristotle gave a soul to to demonstrate the soul could not exist without the body.

Answer 13

If we imagine an axe to be a living thing then its soul would be its ability to chop wood, and if it couldn’t chop wood, then it is nothing but matter.

If we imagine an eye to be a living thing then its soul would be the ability to see, and if it couldn’t see, then it would be nothing but matter.

Question 14

Hierarchy of the soul

Answer 14

Vegetative - plants have, to get nourishment and reproduce.

Perceptive (sensitive) - animals have, they have senses to experience the world, react too stimuli, distinguish between pleasure and pain.

Intellectual (rational) - they have the ability to reason and tell from right and wrong.

Question 15

In what way do the four causes give life?

Answer 15

The body is the material cause

The soul is the formal cause (because the soul animates the body), the efficient cause (as it is what makes the body come about) and the final cause, to live a good life.

Question 16

What is consciousness?

Answer 16

Self-awareness, having thoughts, feelings, desires, imagination.

Question 17

What is the mind/body problem?

Answer 17

How can something as strange as consciousness be explained?

Is my mind separate from my body?

If so, how do my mind and body interact?

Question 18

What is Rene Descartes’ famous quote?

Answer 18

‘I think therefore I am’

Cogito, ergo sum

Question 19

What type of philosophy did Descartes bring about, and what did it involve?

Answer 19

Scepticism

Removing all beliefs and starting fresh with roots of true knowledge, not taking assumptions for granted

Question 20

Why did Descartes publish his work anonymously?

Answer 20

Galileo had a theory that the earth was not at the centre of the universe, and the Catholic Church were persecuting him at the time for it.

Descartes didn’t want to be persecuted by the Church as well.

Question 21

How do you gain true knowledge, according to Descartes?

Answer 21

You must question absolutely everything that you have ever believed. The only way to rid the mind of falsehoods is to start again.

Question 22

How did the body work like for Descartes? Was there any connection with the mind and the body? Why?

Answer 22

Descartes moved to Holland where they were more relaxed about new scientific ideas and there was great interest in mechanical objects.

Likewise, he said that the body is like a machine.

The connection between the mind and the body is through the pineal gland. There is no other part in the head that has a single part rather than a pair.

At the time, the pineal gland had no known purpose.

Question 23

Why is Descartes’ view of the mind and body successful?

Answer 23

It allows for the possibility of life after death. If the mind is separate, then perhaps it can exist after death.

Descartes tries to explain how the body and mind interact.

The way we use language suggests that we are more than just a physical body - we talk as though our minds and bodies are separate things.

The observation that the mind and the body have different properties so cannot be the same substance is a valid point.

Question 24

Why is Descartes’ view of the mind and body not successful?

Answer 24

David Hume says that Descartes doesn’t establish that our mind is a substance, merely asserts it. Being aware that we are thinking does not mean it’s separate from our physical nature.

Descartes has not told us how the link is made between the mental and the physical.

The pineal gland actually has a known purpose, which is a hormone that regulates sleep patterns.

Losing a limb does often alter a person’s outlook on life and can even changing their personality. Maybe the mind and the body are closely connected?