Soul, mind and body Flashcards
(29 cards)
What is Plato’s view if the soul
He was a dualist who believed that the soul and body are separate - the soul is part of the form of the good.
Charioteer analogy:
Horse 1 = desire
Horse 2 = emotion
Charioteer = ability to reason
This can lose control and the sol could fall down into the body (prison).
What is the theory of opposites
Everything that comes to be must be from its opposite form - eg. dying must come with life.
Plato used this to claim that there must be life after death whereby the soul can be reused.
What is the story of the slave boy (Menno)?
The slave is constantly being questioned by Socrates to suggest that when we learn things in our current life, we are being reminded of what we already know.
What is anamnesis?
recollection, usually from a prior existence
What is Aristotle’s view of the soul?
He was a weak dualist who believed that the soul is what animates the body and gives it its characteristics and form therefore they cannot be completely separate
Wax and stamp analogy:
Wax = body
Stamp = soul
They cannot exist without one another
Why did Aristotle have this view of the soul?
He was an empiricist therefore he made use of observations and sense experience to conclude that there must be a soul.
How does the example of the axe explain the soul?
The purpose of the axe is to chop, if the axe is only a toy then it cannot commit its purpose - the toy axe is the body with no soul.
What does Aristotle believe happens to the soul when we die?
He believed that the soul was inseparable from the body therefore he did not believe that the soul could exist after death.
Did Aristotle believe all living things had a soul?
Yes
Vegetative soul - plants
Appetitive soul - animals
Rational souls - humans
What is Descartes’ view of the soul?
He was a substance dualist who believed that the mind and body were separate as they have different properties. Yet, the soul is able to interact with the physical body through the pineal gland.
The mental can live on and exist outside of the physical - hence, the soul carries on when we die.
Mind = think, immaterial
Body = physical, extension
Weaknesses of substance dualism?
The mind and soul must have a connection to make you who you are - they cannot be entirely separate substances.
There’s no observable evidence for a non-physical soul that can exist or operate independently of the body.
The mind controls how the body functions and acts.
Your mind has the ability to adapt which may affect the outlook on the body.
What is property dualism?
Although the world is composed of just one kind of substance — the physical kind — there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties.
What is reductive materialism?
Belief that the mind is not distinct from the physical brain but is instead identical with it meaning consciousness must die with death eg. the conscience would be a physical part of the body.
Who does Gilbert Ryle criticize and what does he say?
He criticized Descartes and argued that he made a ‘category era’ as a substance must be a thing you could see - this is nonsensical.
He uses the term ‘ghost in the machine’
What is soul 1 according to Dawkins?
Soul 1 is known as ‘mystic jelly’ (people believing in some form of afterlife) and the belief that the soul is separate from the body.
This is rejected by Dawkins due to a lack of evidence.
What is soul 2 according to Dawkins?
Soul 2 is a metaphorical view of the soul - our personalities and collection of memory
He took a more scientific approach believing that we are only ‘survival machines’.
What does Dawkins believe we are in rejecting any form of the soul?
He took a more scientific approach believing that we are only ‘survival machines’ - organisms are built by genes for the sole purpose of facilitating those gene’s survival.
What does Richard Dawkins mean by the ‘selfish gene’?
Genes are here today as they were successful in the past and have been passed on generations.
We simply use these to adapt to our environment.
What is Anthony Flew’s criticism of the soul?
He rejects the idea of the soul and calls it nonsensical as physical behaviors make us who we are.
He uses the example of the Cheshire cat to show how you cannot not have the smile. Similarly, there cannot be life after death as the body no longer behaves.
What does Susan Blackmore believe about the soul?
Blackmore argues from a materialist perspective: all mental phenomena, including consciousness and identity, arise from physical processes in the brain.
She believes that when we describe consciousness we are actually describing something that isn’t there - delusion.
‘Soul’ is what describes what it is like to be a person.
What does Keith Ward say about the soul?
He wrote a book that criticized scientists that reject the soul as he says without one, morality becomes a matter of choice and taste and we would simply just be animals.
What is the Myth of Er?
A story about someone who died and came back to life to tell stories of the afterlife - immortality of the soul.
What is a category era?
Categorizing something wrong due to an incorrect assumption.
What is Cogito Ergo Sum and what does Descartes mean by this?
‘I think therefore I am’ - Descartes
The act of thinking is proof of ones existence and thus proof of the soul- while one can doubt everything else, the very act of doubt and though confirms ones existence.
