Soul, mind & body

Question 1

Plato on the soul

Answer 1

• Plato is dualist:
• body is temporary and soul is eternal (the essence of someone)
• its contemplation of the Form of the Good
• Socrates - soul lives on as thought and intelligence

Question 2

Dualism

Answer 2

• belief in two seperate elements (body & soul)

Question 3

Aristolte 3 Types of souls

Answer 3

• vegetative: type possesed by plants
• Appetitive: animals and humans (emotion)
• Intellectual: unique to humans, reasoning and thinking

Question 4

Plato’s dualism

Answer 4

He believed the body was like a prison for the soul, trapping it in this world of appearances.

The charioteer analogy:

• one horse represents the rational part of passionate nature
• while the other represents the soul’s irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature (sexual desires)

Question 5

Humes critic of the plato recollection

Answer 5

• He responds that we can actually create the idea of perfection in our minds even if we have never experienced it.

Question 6

Aristotle’s view of the soul

Answer 6

• Aristotle is a materialist – thinks only one type of thing exists – material/physical things.
• The soul is what gives our body rational thought.
  It’s not a separate thing to our body – it is the form of our physical body.
• Stamp in wax analogy – the body is like wax and the soul is like the imprint in wax left by the stamp.

Question 7

Aristotle weaknesses

Answer 7

• Kenny states ‘He is unclear about what happens to the soul”
• How can reason exist beyond a body? Seems to be a contradiction that body and soul are inseprable but rational thought can be seperated.

Question 8

aristotles strength

Answer 8

• dervived from studies of the natural world
• relies on empirical evidence

Question 9

Substance Dualism

Answer 9

• Mind and soul are seperate substances
• pythagoras, socrates and Plato all are within this view

Question 10

Descartes dualist understanding of consciousness

1596

supporter of plato

Answer 10

BOOK: Meditations and the passions of the soul

• he notes how sense experince can be mistaken
• this means that the material world and even the body might be an illusion (descartes devil)

Question 11

1900

Gilbern Ryle - ‘Ghost in the machine’.

Crticsm of dualism (descartes)

Answer 11

• Argues it is improper to seperate the mind and the soul, its a category mistake - they function together

Question 12

descartes gland?

Answer 12

pineal gland is the part of the body with which the soul is most immediately associated.