Rs Ph mind body and soul

• Soul meaning in philosophy is referred to as 'self' since 'soul' has religious connotations.
• Plato argues our body is temporary that only is there to house the soul
• Plato believes the soul is the essence of a person, eternal and immoral
• Plato argues the soul drives the body. He thinks the body distracts the soul from the real world (world of appearances).
• Plato thinks after the body dies, the soul goes to the world of forms
• according to plato, the Soul consists of appetite, emotion and reason
• Plato uses the analogy of chariot horses. The two horses are appetite and emotion and the rider is the reason.
• Plato uses the myth of er to support his idea. A solider er died on a battle field, the body didn't decompose after weeks. er came back to life to tell his experience.
• strength of plato: Richard Swinburne agrees and argues it is a logical concept since we can imagine being separate from our bodies
• Strength of plato: Ward argues we need a soul because without it, humans lack a purpose.
• Strength of plato: Locke argues there is something more than a body that makes up an individual.
• Strength of plato: Plato's cycle of opposites were influenced by Augustine.
• Strength of plato: Religious people agree, St Paul says 'dust returned to the earth'
• Weakness of plato: Freud argues social conditioning and upbringing is what makes us us.
• Weakness of plato: To accept his soul theory, we also must accept the dualism theory
• Weakness of plato: Dawkins argues we are just survival machines therefore an immortal soul is not logical
• Weakness of plato: Ryle argues soul isn't a substance to separate. It doesn't fit with modern psychology.
• Aristotle argues our body and soul cannot be separated
• Aristotle refers to the term 'soul' as 'psyche'
• Aristotle argues our physical body is constantly changing but the substance of a person stays the same.
• Aristotle believes the soul is the formal cause of the body, causing it to function.
• Aristotle argues the soul distinguishes a living thing from a dead thing. this is called De Anima
• Aristotle believes all living things have a soul, plants have a vegetative soul (they are capable to grow and reproduce). A animal has a perceptive soul, (they can have experiences and distinguish between pleasure and pain)
• Aristotle uses his Axe analogy: an axe is not a living thing, but if we imagine it has a soul, its capacity is to chop wood. A toy axe is not a real axe so it doesnt have a capacity to chop since it's purpose is in the child's imagination.
• Aristotle used a wax analogy: Soul is inseparable from a living body, like wax is inseparable from the matter of wax
• Strength of Aristotle: Ryle agrees in the sense that our soul is not separate from our body
• Strength of Aristotle: Soul gives us a purpose
• Weakness of Aristotle: there is infinite regress, if the soul causes the body, what causes the soul?
• Weakness: religious people may disagree as it implies we have no afterlife
• Weakness Aristotle: If someone is disabled, it implies their soul is disabled too as they are not seperate
• Descartes had hyperbolic doubt, so he questioned everything to an extreme, even maths. However he did not question that he was a thinking being.
• Descartes said 'I think, therefore, I am'
• Descartes argues the mind is separate to the body, since one is material and can be doubted, and one is immaterial and cannot be doubted
• Descartes argues that our mind can cause mental and physical changes and vice versa. However this is the problem of interactionism.
• Ryle thinks the categorical mistake is to treat the mind and body as if they are two different things, when they are not in the same substance category.
• Ryle uses the cricket match analogy to explain: watching a match of the team's skills and tactics is different to watching the teams spirit. He doesn't reject people having this spirit, but rejects the team spirit to be an 'addition' to the team.
• Dawkins argues that that there is no part of a human that is non-physical. Consciousness cannot be separated from the brain.
• Dawkins argues we are just survival machines just like every other animal. We don't have immortal soul, instead we are chemicals and genes that act to survive.
• There are two types of souls, the supernatural and spiritual soul, and the personality soul. Dawkins accepts soul 2 as we need this personality sense to be motivated to survive.