Plato & Aristotle

• Dualists

  • There are two aspects to human beings, a physical body and a non-physical soul
  • They tend to believe in life after death
• Substance : A subject which has different properties attributed to it.
• Materialism

  The belief that only physical matter exists, and that the mind can be explained in physical terms as chemical activity in the brain.
• Soul - The non - physical essence of a person.
• Plato


  The soul is immaterial.

  It is pre-existent and immortal.

  We 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.
• Socrates

  • The soul continued to live in a mode where it still has thought & intelligence.
  • After death, it is undisturbed by constant bodily demands, so it can reach its highest state.
• Socrates

  • Soul necessarily must continue living - it is life giving.
  • Soul animates a person.
  • It would be contradictory for soul to die.
• • Plato argues every quality comes into being by depending on the opposite.
  • Big things exist because smaller things exist, in the same way Plato concludes that life exists from death & death exists from life.
  • It is an endless chain of birth, death & rebirth.
• Argument from knowledge - Slave boy

  • In the dialogue 'Meno'
  • A slave boy with no education is given a geometry puzzle to solve. Through questioning, the boy solves the puzzle, so he must have used knowledge that existed before birth because he hasn't had any education.
  • Plato concluded that this showed that our souls once lived in the world of perfect Forms.
• Tripartite view

  A) EMOTION

  B) APETITE

  C) REASON

  
• Myth of Er

  • Demonstrates the necessity of seeking wisdom through philosophy in order for the soul in order for the soul to benefit.
  • Each person has a conscious choice to make about the next life & carries all responsibility for it.
  • Once souls chose destiny, they given a special drink, which made them forget their previous life, except for Er who was freed to return to his funeral pyre & educate his friends.
• Aristotle

  • Materialist
  • Soul was a substance (essence/real thing).
  • The physical body is in continual change but the 'substance' remains the same.
• Living things are distinguished from non-living things by what they can do, their capabilities. It is these capabilities, the form that defines the soul for Aristotle.
• Plato is right, soul is separate

  • Plato doesn't describe human experience of inner conflict.
  • Reason is in control = soul is in harmony. As we become more mature & make rational decisions based on reason, we feel more unified as a person = there is a soul that is more important & controls the wants & desires of the material body.
  • Soul, using reason, can access WOF as it remembers this world prior to being incarnated in body. ('remembering' = anamnesis)
  • We know what is fair & unfair - soul recalls Form of Justice from WOF
• Plato's arg from opposite

  • we recognise opposites like large & small, light & dark, life & death.
  • Body & soul are also opposites.
  • death must be something - moving of soul from WOA to WOF
• Plato is wrong - no separate soul

  • inner conflict could be explained as emotion, personality type or lack of maturity. Could be due to upbringing or DNA so we are easily swayed by desires or emotions rather than immaterial soul.
  • no verifiable evidence of an immaterial soul as something extra & beyond physical body.
  • Geach - how can a disembodied soul can 'see' the Forms when 'seeing' is a physical process.
  • Slave boy - without an education, he got to answer step by step & learning, not recalling.
  • arg from opposite - seems to be an assumption. Not everything has an opposite. No need to assume that soul exists or is opposite of body.
• Difference between Plato & Christianity

  • P : Soul is without beginning
  • C : Soul was created by God.
  • P : Soul is eternal by nature; nothing destroys God.
  • C : Any immortality of soul is a gift from God , not smthng soul has by right.
• Aristotle & soul

  • soul was the substance (essence)
  • A baby, teen, elderly person - are they all the 'same person'?
  • Physical body is in continual state of change but 'substance' stays same.
  • continuing identity/ essence - A understood as soul (psyche).
• De Anima

  'the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life'.

  Soul (psyche) was what distinguished living from the dead.
• Soul as formal cause

  • soul is that which gives living things its 'essence'.
  • include matter & structure but soul enables body to do what it does.
• Types of soul

  • Vegetative soul - get nourishment for themselves & ensure reproduction.
  • Appetitive soul - animals have senses with which they experience the world & react to stimuli. Enough intelligence to distinguish between pleasure & pain.
  • Rational soul - Humans have higher degree soul - ability to reason & tell right from wrong.
• Soul & causality (A)

  • soul is that which gives matter its form, its efficiency & its final purpose (telos).
• Soul explained with was seal (A)

  • Imprint on a seal cannot be separated from wax in which it is imprinted. - Like inseparable body & soul: both matter (material/wax) & form (shape of seal) are needed to make what it is.
  • Everything was made of matter & had form which are shape & characteristics.
  • Body - material cause
  • Soul - formal cause
• Aristotle's view of soul is successful

  • soul - essential as it is formal cause of body - its characteristics.
  • Anscombe - supports idea of intention - action of pointing at an object is physical but doesn't explain reason why we have pointed or intention behind action. Intention could be linked to soul because it shows there is more to me than physical actions.
  • Body & soul can't be separated - both are essential to living being (wax)
  • Ari argues because body & soul can't be separated, when body dies, so does soul. This explains differences we observe when something dies as soul dies as well.
• Aristotle's view isn't successful

  • Materialists argue that we are made of physical matter only. No need to assume there is something extra or immaterial inside that is soul.
  • Plato - argue soul can be separated from body which imprisons it during life. After death - return to WOF.
  • Materialists - physical body ceasing to function explains the difference between living & dead because there is nothing after - soul dies too.
• Aquinas & Aristotle

  • human soul - the intellect / mind is something incorporeal & subsistent.
  • It is not material & should be understood as the mind not something separate from it.
  • Body is necessary for me to be me.