Soul, Mind And Body Flashcards
(33 cards)
What is a dualist?
Someone who believes the body and soul are entirely separate
What is a substance dualist?
Someone that believes the soul and body are entirely different substances
What is a materialist?
The idea that the mind and body are one substance and its a material matter
What is a monist?
Someone who believes the soul and body are one substance together not two
What is reductionism?
The idea that everything can be reduced to physical statements about the body
What is behaviourism?
All mental states are simply learned behaviour.
What was plato?
A substance dualist
What does Plato describe the soul as?
> Divine
Intelligent
Perfect
What are Plato’s three aspects of the soul?
> Appetitive (greed)
Rational (intellectual)
Spirited (emotional)
What analogy did Plato use to describe the soul?
The charioteer:
> There is a chariot pulled by two horses
> one horse is black and is the appetitive element of the soul
> The other is white and is the spirited element of the soul
> the Charioteer is the rational element of the soul together they work in unison.
What did Plato say about the body?
> ‘the body is the source of endless trouble’
‘takes away from us all power of thinking at all’
How does Descartes support Plato?
Descartes believes the only thing we know for certain is that we think and our body could be an illusion. ‘I think therefore I am’
Descartes continued?
> Descartes similarly to Plato believes the material world is flawed and changing and the only thing certain is our mind
Implying the mind and soul are entirely different substances.
What was Descartes quote on the mind and body?
‘There is a very great difference between the mind and the body, because the body is by nature divisible but the mind is not’
How did Gilbert Ryle combat Descartes?
> Ryle argued Descartes made a category error in believing the mind is the pilot of the body and the body itself is a sort of machine.
He uses the ‘ghost in the machine’ to critique Descartes view of the mind as how can something non physical impact the physical.
How did Ryle further critique the dualist perception of the soul:
> Ryle stated it would be a category error for example to look at a cricket match with its wickets, umpires and players and ask where the team spirit is.
Similarly when you look at a person with its eyes, personality and smile to ask where the soul is.
Descartes assumes that things can be both physical and mental when they can be both instead such as PTSD or phantom limbs
How does Peter Geach critique Dualism:
- ‘It is a savage superstition to support the notion that man consists of two pieces, body and soul’
- How can a disembodied soul see the forms is an experience like that is linked to physical senses.
What is G.E.M Anscombe’s take on dualism?
> rejects dualism
’bodily acts is an act of man qua spirit’
Both soul and body are needed
What is Aristotle
Most scholars argue he is a dualist
What is Aristotle’s take on the mind and body?
> The formal cause gives something its shape
The body is animated by the soul which gives it life
The soul is the formal cause of a human
The soul does not die after death
What example does Aristotle use?
The example of the eye, being the idea that, if the eye were a body its soul would be its capacity to see.
How does Aquinas support Aristotle?
‘The soul is defined as the first principle of life in living things’
How does Aquinas view soul and body?
> ’my soul is not me’ but a principe of life
my life needs the body to be animated
soul is not material
