Soul, Mind and Body

• dualism

  The idea that there are physical and non-physical parts to human beings.
• materialism

  The idea that humans are made of physical particles and nothing else.
• Theseus' ship

  Over time, every part of Theseus' ship wears out or is damaged so is replaced with a new part, until everything has been replaced. Does Theseus still have the same ship? Is an object that has all its parts replaced still the same object? If all the old and damaged parts are rebuilt into another ship, which one is Theseus' ship? Am 'I' only a (physical) body, or more?
• issues with anatta

  -cells replenish on a 7 year cycle, therefore after 7 years we will be physically different beings

  -we consider ourselves the same beings however, which suggests something non-physical determines this

  -Buddhists believe in anatta (no self) and therefore no fixed soul, however they say there is a soul/ energy nonetheless as we reincarnate

  -if we consider ourselves purely physical, we must reject the idea of dualism
• materialism is the best approach to problems of soul, mind and body

  -an immaterial or mysterious mind or soul wouldn't be able to be verified or detected. How would I know if it existed?

  -we couldn't use language accurately to discuss a non-physical essence if it existed

  -Dennett, Dawkins & Blackmore argue consciousness isn't found in a single place, it's a combo of processes & responses in the brain

  -evidence from brain scans/ drugs indicates changes in thought & motives are physical. NASA studies which 'read' silent words from throat sensors support thinking has a physical source
• strengths of materialism

  -fMRI can detect changes in the brain when a subject's attention moves to different images. Suggests mental activity e.g. thought or attention, is caused by physical events in the brain (1)

  -if there is nothing more to personhood than the body or brain, there's no need for an afterlife. This solves problems such as how can 'I' survive my death? (5)

  -uses scientific methods & shows how modern studies of the brain can shed light on previously mysterious processes, e.g. thinking. It may be possible to read a person's thoughts by sensors detecting physical responses (3)
• weakness of materialism

  -even if thoughts & other mental activities can be tracked by physical changes in the brain, there's still a problem about how this comes about & the intention behind it. Nerve functions in the brain can't have desires/ intentions (4)

  -reduces all human experience & existence to the physical. There are many who point to a feeling of something more than the material, perhaps a sense of self or a metaphysical realm, to something beyond the physical world which may be accessed in the afterlife. Experiences of the paranormal could be used as examples to support this (6)
• Dawkins on materialism (2)

  -Dawkins' claims that one day scientists will be able to fully understand consciousness is an assumption

  -he is filling the gaps in scientific knowledge with the assumption that materialism holds the answers. This is the same as those who fill the gap with the idea of an immaterial soul
• 
  

   Plato's Forms

  -according to Plato, things which fall under a common name, like ‘chair,’ or ‘table,’ ‘bed,’ must have something in common by virtue of which they are called by that name

  -this something in common is the essence of that kind of thing, which Plato calls the 'forms' or 'idea' of that thing

  -today, Plato’s forms or ideas are more commonly called 'universals'
• Plato's Forms

  -Beauty, Justice, & the Circle are all examples of Forms. Forms are perfect ideals but are also more 'real' than physical objects

  -world of Forms is rational & unchanging; world of physical appearances is changeable & irrational, and only has reality to the extent that it succeeds in imitating the Forms

  -mind/ soul belongs to the ideal world; body & its passions to the physical world

  -the best human life is one that strives to imitate the Forms as closely as possible. That life is the life of the mind, the life of the philosopher                                            
• Plato's Forms

  -a form can be apprehended by the mind, but not by the senses

  -in apprehending the form of something, the mind is acquainted with the reality of that thing, and knows the truth about it

  -thus it is the mind which knows, not the senses, and this is the beginning of rationalism in philosophy
• Plato's cave

  The Myth of the Cave is an allegory concerning the relationship between the World of Being (Forms and fundamental reality) and the World of Becoming (world we experience through our senses) and a warning of the dangers facing the philosopher.
• Plato's theory of Forms

  -begins with image of a number of prisoners shackled in a cave with faces to the wall

  -what they see and consider to be reality are the shadows cast on the wall

  -what we all take to be reality consists ultimately of shadows; it is not that these are unreal. They are real shadows, but they are shadows of things that are even more real

  -so the distinction here is not, as in Parmenides,  between reality and illusion. It is the distinction between more and less real, a superior and an inferior world
• Plato's theory of Forms

  -let’s suppose a prisoner breaks free and turns around, casting his eyes, for the first time, on the genuine objects that cast the shadows and the bright sun that does the casting. Would he not immediately see how imperfect are the shadows of the everyday reality compared with the reality he now observed?  

  -so, too, the philosopher is dazzled when he sees the perfect Forms of virtue, justice, and courage, compared to the imperfect and usually confused ideas and actions of ordinary men and women.  How much ‘higher' then his aspirations will be
• Plato's Meno

  -the slave boy, who has not been taught geometry, solves the problem just through Socrates asking a series of questions

  -how? He didn’t gain the knowledge from experience, so he must have recovered the answers from within his mind

  -the argument for innate knowledge is that we have knowledge that we can’t have gained from experience

  -Socrates then argues that the mind must have existed before birth
• Plato's view of the soul summary

  -soul is more important than body. Body belongs to the empirical world and soul belongs to the world of Forms

  -our bodies distract us from minds' real purpose (philosophical thought) and we are ‘trapped’ in our bodies

  -soul is separate, eternal & contains innate knowledge. It came from world of Forms and a good person is one whose soul/ reason is in charge

  -soul has been pulled from the realm of Forms and is at odds with the desires of body. Once body dies our soul is liberated – free to either reincarnate into another body or return to the world of Forms
• Explain how Plato's view of the soul dictates that he is a dualist

  -because he talks about a soul being separate from the body

  -he argues that our bodies are controlled by the unreliable and imperfect senses, which deceive us
• Which evidence does Plato give to suggest that the mind and body are separate? 


  -the body is constantly changing, aging and decaying, and at some point will cease to exist

  -this impermanence of the body means there must be something more permanent
• Explain why Plato thinks the soul is 'trapped' in the body

  -for Plato, the soul is the real, essential part of us that can reason and, therefore, can access the true, unchanging reality of the World of the Forms

  -the body acts like a prison for the soul, which chains us to our senses, just like the prisoners in the analogy of the cave. For Plato, the soul is real and trapped in the body; it longs to escape and return to the World of the Forms
• What is the analogy of the Chariot? How does it help describe the relationship between our mind and body?

  -he illustrates the struggle between body & soul with a man driving a chariot

  -reason is like the charioteer who controls the two wayward horses of spirit (emotions) and the physical appetites

  -when reason is in control, the soul is in harmony

  -more often, bodily desires or emotions take over and we are driven by greed or anger

  -e.g. a teenager is told they can't go to a party, gets angry, slams the door - there is no harmony in the soul because reason isn't in control of the emotions
• Explain how Socrates' discourse in 'Meno' shows our minds to have innate knowledge

  -the slave boy, who hasn't been taught geometry, solves the problem just through Socrates asking a series of questions

  -he didn’t gain the knowledge from experience, so he must have recovered the answers from within his mind

  -for Plato, knowledge is recollected by the soul, not learned, and this innate knowledge is proof that the body & soul are separate experiences

  -Socrates then argues that the mind must have existed before birth
• What does the term 'anamnesis' mean?


  -by using reason, our soul recalls what it knows about the permanent, unchanging and perfect Forms e.g. when I see a beautiful flower, sunset and person, although they are different, my soul recognises the Form of Beauty participating in each one

  -this is called anamnesis or recollection of innate knowledge - knowledge that our soul has already and isn't gained through experiences
• Plato and knowledge

  -Plato uses the argument from recollection and knowledge to support his view of the soul

  -he asks how we gain knowledge if it is only found in the World of the Forms, not in this world

  -Plato's answer is that our soul has previously witnessed the Forms before it was incarnated into our body
• Plato's argument from opposites

  -we recognise opposites such as large and small, light and dark, life and death

  -the body and soul are also opposites

  -since life is something, death must also be something - the moving of the soul to the World of the Forms

  -->BUT the argument from opposites seems to be an assumption. For example, not everything has an opposite, e.g. what would be the opposite of the colour blue? There is no need to assume that the soul exists or is the opposite of the body
• Plato is right, there is a separate soul

  -describes human experience of inner conflict e.g. knowing I should go to the gym, but feeling lazy; suggests reason isn't in control of soul

  -when reason is in control, the soul is in harmony e.g. if the 3 parts of the soul are harmonious, spirit shows courage, rational part of soul shows wisdom and together they control the appetites, showing moderation & order. As we mature and make more rational decisions, we feel more unified as a person

  -we know what is fair/ unfair before we have learned this because our soul recalls the Form of Justice
• Plato is wrong, there is no separate soul

  -inner conflict could be explained as emotion, personality or lack of maturity. Could be due to upbringing or DNA so that we are more easily swayed by desires

  -no verifiable evidence of an immaterial soul

  -Peter Geach criticises this argument. He asks how a disembodied soul can 'see' the Forms when 'seeing' is a physical process

  -in the slave example, Socrates' questions seem to lead the boy to the answer step by step. Even without an education, he could arrive at the answer by learning, not recalling
• Plato's tripartite soul theory

  -the parts are the rational part, the spirited part, and the appetitive part;

  the three types of soul deal with the three parts

  -a soul ruled by the appetitive part is inconstant and dangerous because each desire dominates the entire soul without limit

  -the spirited part of the soul is not as dangerous, but it is not fully coherent and harmonised because the passions have no overarching guide

  -a soul ruled by reason, however, is fully harmonised and just; it experiences desires and passions but only in the proper amounts and for the sake of rational ends
• Aristotle versus Plato

  -Aristotle has a different view of body and soul to that of Plato

  -since Aristotle based his views on empiricism rather than on rationalism like Plato, he used observation and sense experience to conclude that there must be a soul, but he has very different ideas to Plato of what this is and what it means

  -Aristotle argued that knowledge comes from our observations and experiences, which use our senses. There's no need to look outside of this world for truth, which is shown in Raphael's painting, where Aristotle's hand and book face the ground and his feet are still
• Aristotle and the soul

  -although Aristotle recognises the existence of a soul, he thinks the soul cannot be separated from the body

  -he uses the example of how ancient letters and documents were sealed using a wax seal. The imprint on a seal cannot be separated from the wax in which it is imprinted. This is like the inseparable body and soul: both matter (the material or wax) and form (the shape of the seal) are needed to make it what it is
• Aristotle and the soul

  -Aristotle observed that everything was made of matter (the material cause) and had a form (the formal cause), which are the shape and characteristics that make it what it is. The body is the material cause whereas the soul is the formal cause

  -for Aristotle, the soul is real but in a different way to Plato because it is the soul that animates the body and gives it its characteristics and form
• Aristotle example

  -think about an example of a living and dead chicken

  -Aristotle could observe the similarities e.g. they both have feathers and a beak (matter), but there are differences in form because the dead chicken no longer clucks, pecks and walks around (formal cause of a living chicken)

  -Aristotle would suggest that the change is because the formal cause, the soul, has died with the body
• Aristotle and the faculties

  -Aristotle applied the idea of soul to all living things, not just to people

  -Aristotle identified three faculties (or abilities) of the soul. He thought that every living thing has a soul which contains one or more of the faculties:

  --> 'vegetative' refers to characteristics of growing

  --> 'appetitive' refers to the ability to act and fulfil desires for food,

  reproduction and so on

  --> 'rational' abilities (intellect) are found only in human souls
• Aristotle and the faculties explained

  -therefore, a plant would have a vegetative soul, a lion could have both vegetative and appetitive abilities, whereas humans have all three faculties of the soul

  -some of Aristotle's writings suggest he thought that reason or intellect could survive death. However, his writings on this are unclear and it seems to go against his reliance on sense experience and observation because there is no way to observe intellect surviving death
• Aristotle's view of the soul is successful

  -the soul is essential because it's the formal cause of the body (its characteristics) e.g. the blade & handle of an axe are like the body; the form/ soul is its ability to chop. The axe wouldn't be an axe with only the matter, it needs the form to be what it is

  -Elizabeth Anscombe supports this with the idea of intention. The action of pointing is physical, but doesn't explain the reason why we have pointed, or the intention behind the action. Intention could be linked to the soul because it shows there is more to me than just physical actions
• Aristotle's view of the soul is successful

  -the body & soul can't be separated because both are essential to the living being (like the wax analogy explains). If this is true, there's no need to assume there is a life after death, which raises more philosophical problems e.g. how can anything of 'me' survive death?

  -Aristotle argues because the body & soul can't be separated, when the body dies, so does the soul. This explains the differences that we observe when something dies because the soul dies as well as the body
• Aristotle's view of the soul is unsuccessful

  -materialists would argue that we're made of physical matter only. There's no need to assume there is something extra, or immaterial, inside that is a soul e.g. the physical body ceasing to function explains the difference between a living and a dead chicken because there is nothing else, no soul

  -Plato would argue that the soul can be separated from the body which imprisons it during life. After death, the soul is released to return to the World of the Forms and gains knowledge of the Forms before it's incarnated into another body
• What is consciousness?

  -consciousness describes intellect, thinking and being aware of who we are

  -the mind-body problem is about how the mind and the body

  relate to each other

  -philosophers may discuss issues such as: how can consciousness be explained? Is the thinking mind something separate from my body? If the mind or consciousness is separate from my body, how do my mind and body interact?
• Descarte's ideas

  -Descartes is often labelled a substance dualist

  -he began questioning how he could be certain about anything

  -he decided he could doubt everything as he could be being deceived by an evil demon & even his body could be an illusion and may not exist. He concluded that even if this was the case, he was still thinking

  -'cogito, ergo sum' - 'I think, therefore I am'

  -mind where 'thinking' took place, so Descartes decided his mind was the essence of himself and he must exist

  -Descartes understood the mind to be completely separate from the body
• the physical vs mental

  -the physical part of us, the body, cannot think

  -the material body can be divided into parts e.g. an amputated limb separated from the rest of the body doesn't take away anything from the mind or who I am

  -the mind can't be divided into parts

  -mental capacity to feel and understand is all done by the same mind

  -Descartes argues since the thinking mind can be separated from the existence of a body, it must be in a different sort of substance

  -he argues mind is an immaterial substance whereas body is a material substance, so he's a substance dualist
• the pineal gland

  -if mind and body are separate substances, there needs to be a link between the body and the mind

  -Descartes suggests this link is in the pineal gland, in the centre of the brain. This is because there are two of everything else in the body (eyes, nostrils, ears, etc.) but only one pineal gland

  -he reasoned that the pineal gland was the home of singular thought as well as where the imagination and common sense are found