A-level Philosophy Body and Soul

•Soul is mainly used as meaning the same thing as ‘self’ to refer to the subject of mental states and of spiritual experience.

•Plato put forward an idea of a soul which is immortal and which can exist independently of the body, whereas Aristotle’s ideas about the soul were completely different

•Plato was dualist. This meant that he believed that the body and soul are separate

•General belief of the soul = immaterial, pre-existent and immortal

•He thought that we would come back in our next life as something better or worse depending on how we were during our previous life until we fulfil our potential and enter a type of heaven

•The body = temporary, physical, material aspect

•The Soul = Essential, Immaterial aspect

•There must be two distinct substances: -Tripartite soul: reason, spirit (emotions), appetites   →   Analogy of chariot (reason controlling the other two  

•Soul linked to forms →  pre-existent life in the world of Forms → Capable of recognising and understanding the forms → Before it was pulled by the appetites to earth

•Rational evidence

•Anamnesis → Recollection

•‘I have a body’ or ‘I am a body’

•Aristotle was a monist. This meant that he believed that the body and soul cannot be separated

•We are made up of two things = body (matter) + a soul or ‘psyche’ (the form)

•The soul is an integral part of the body → you cannot have one without the other (e.g. A cake cannot be a cake without its ingredients or Form)

•The soul animates body, by organising a potential living body into an actual one

•Considered the nature of the soul and that the soul was a ‘substance’

•Soul and body inter-related •Soul is the formal cause of the body

•Soul animates body – e.g. of stamp and wax/ sight and the eye

Monist approach:

•The body and soul cannot be separated

•The wax tablet shows that the soul is inseparable from the person

•Aristotle sees the soul as the formal cause of the body  

•The soul is not distinct or self-contained but works together with the body

•Its nature depends on the type of living being that it is

•The soul can be arranged in hierarchy e.g. the soul of a plant has powers of nutrition, growth and reproduction, whereas the human soul also has the power of reason

•If the body was an axe, the soul would be its ability to chop

•If the body was an eye, the soul would be its ability to see

•There can be no soul present without the body

•Our soul is a human soul with human properties

•They have a rational and irrational part

•The irrational; parts is the same as an animal’s → it’s vegetative and appetite

•The human soul is different as it can reason

•The soul cannot survive death as it is in separate from the body

•Aristotle differs to Plato as he rejects the idea of dualism as he believed that the form of an object was not some kind of abstract and separate ideal. He believed that the form of an object was contained within the object itself

•Aristotle believes the person is not one thing inside another; the soul and the body are inseparable units

“The soul does not exist without the body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body, and for this reason exists in a body”

•The soul is the form of a living thing → the soul is the3 first actuality of a natural body which potentiality has the life. The soul distinguishes the living from the non-living

•Souls are fulfilments of the bodies hence souls cannot exist apart from bodies

•Aristotle argued that there is a hierarchy of soul functions or activities:

1.Growth and nutrition (reproduction)

2.Locomotion (perception)

3.Intellect (thought)

This gives us three corresponding degrees of the soul:

a)Nutritive soul (plants)

b)Sensitive soul (animals)

c)Rational soul (humans)

Anything that has a higher degree of the soul also has all of the properties of a lower soul. All living things grow, nourish themselves and reproduce. Animals move and perceive. Humans do all above + reason.

 •Vegetative – all living things (growth and reproduction) 

•Appetitive- Animals, human desires(urges, emotions)

•Intellectual -  unique to humans( reasoning, thinking, remembering, deciding) 

•Our bodies are spatial but not conscious, while the mind is not spatial but is conscious

•The mind and body interact within the brain, even though they’re separate

•The state of the body will affect the mind

•When people die, their body is left behind although their soul is able to continue with god

•“Cogito ergo sum”

•Even if we are dreaming, or under the control of an evil demon, we still have out thoughts, known only to ourselves. Therefore, the physical and non-physical are distinct substances with distinct properties. The physical body takes up space but the soul takes up no space as it is non-physical.

•Descartes believed that the mind or self is “entirely and truly distinct from the body and may exist without it”. However, the mind and body do interact, The mind can cause events to occur in the mind.

•Cartesian Dualism can be summarised as follows:

1.Each person is composed of two main parts: an immaterial mind and a physical body

2. Only immaterial minds can have mental properties

3. Only physical objects can have physical properties

4. Mind and body are able to exist independently

5. Mind and body enter into two – way causal interaction

•Supporter of Plato → Believes there is a difference between body and soul

•The mind can’t doubt but the body can

•The mind and body cannot be the same as they have different properties

•Thought that the brain has something to do with the connection between the body and soul

•Pineal Gland = air like ’animal spirits’ → Controls imagination, sense perception, bodily movement and memory

•Pineal Gland → The connecting point between the material body and the immaterial soul

•Rejects the idea of the soul. All mental events are physical events interpreted in a mental way. But what if for an example we were wishing? This is not a physical event.  He believes that an individual is a physical living body and no more, and so when the body dies tat’s it, the whole person is dead.

•Talk of soul is a “category mistake”

•We are not 2 distinct substances

•‘the ghost in the machine”

•He used an example of someone watching a cricket game and asking where the team spirit was. → a special task performed keenly

•Rye argued that treating the mind and body as if they were two things of a similar logical kind was a ‘category mistake’ → Treating something as being one type when it is part of a type. He thought that the mind should not be considered to be something separate or extra apart from the body

•Made fun of Descartes, saying that a separate mind and body was like a ‘ghost in the machine’, as if we were physical machines being operated by some kind of invisible mind

•Said that traditional mind and body distinction was what he called a ‘category mistake’, because it tries to treat the mind and body as if they are two different things of a similar logical kind when in fact they are not in the same logical category

•Ryle believes that the soul and body cannot be separated after death because the view does not sound nor fit with what we know about psychology and neuroscience.

•Ryle as not rejecting the idea that people have minds or personalities or consciousness, but was rejecting the idea that it was a separate part or aspect of a human being

•Dawkins was a materialist. This means that he believes that only physical matter exists and that the mind can be explained in physical terms as chemical activity in the brain

Biological Materialist

•Doesn’t believe in a soul •Believed that life is simply physical matter made up of DNA

•We are the survival machines for this DNA as we are simply ‘gene machines’ driven by our genes to protect and duplicate themselves

•Takes a reductionist approach believing that the mind is nothing but a ‘computer made of meat’

•Evolution filters in ‘good genes’ and filters out the ‘bad genes’

•He does believe in conscious thought

•Once the DNA has developed the brain, it can begin to think for itself as an individual and consider the consequences of its own actions

•Assumed that there is not part of a person that is non-physical 

•Rejects the idea of soul/heaven

Materialist Approach:

•Believed that human beings are bytes of digital information

•No soul or consciousness as we are the sum total of our genes

•Concentrates on the idea that humans are merely carriers of information and DNA 

•Only conceivable theory is that of evolution

•We are as we are because of our genetic makeup. Not the efforts of our soul to guide us towards the realm of ideas each change is due to evolution

•There is no soul which continues, only survival of DNA

•He strongly rejects the notion of the soul in the religious or platonic sense but doe suggest that there may be a place for talking about the soul in a metaphorical or symbolic way

•- SOUL 1 → Traditional view of a principle of life, a real separate thing that is spiritual and contains personality. Dawkins rejects it

•-SOUL 2 → Dawkins argues that this is a meaningful way of describing ourselves provided we are clear that this does not refer to a separate thing

•Believes that science will explain himself one day

•Shouldn't be afraid of death as it like not being born

•‘I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world’

•Human self-awareness is not due to the soul but has developed because self-awareness has evolutionary advantages

•Argues that religious beliefs in ideas such as the immortality of the soul have no sound basics as they are based on wish-fulfilment for those who lack courage or who fear death

•Materialists believe that consciousness is no more than electro-chemical events within the brain and that no person is capable of surviving brain death. Therefore, physical death = END