Soul Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Philosophical views== Greek philosophers, such as [[Socrates]], [[Plato]], and [[Aristotle]], understood that the soul (ψυχή ''[[wikt:ψυχή#Ancient Greek|psykhḗ]]'') must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. At his defense trial, Socrates even summarized his teachings as nothing other than an exhortation for his fellow Athenians to excel in matters of the psyche since all bodily goods are dependent on such excellence (''[[Apology (Plato)|Apology]]'' 30a–b). Aristotle reasoned that a man's body and soul were his matter and form respectively: the body is a collection of elements and the soul is the essence. Soul or [[Psyche (psychology)|psyche]] ([[Ancient Greek]]: ψυχή ''psykhḗ'', of ψύχειν ''psýkhein'', "to breathe", cf. [[Latin]] 'anima') comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, [[free will]], feeling, [[consciousness]], [[qualia]], memory, perception, thinking, etc. Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be [[Mortality of the soul|mortal]] or [[immortality of the soul|immortal]].<ref>{{Cite OED|Soul (noun)|id=185083|access-date=1 December 2016}}</ref> The [[ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]] used the word "[[Ensoulment|ensouled]]" to represent the concept of being "alive", indicating that the earliest surviving [[western philosophy|western philosophical]] view believed that the soul was that which gave the body life.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/ancient-soul/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|last=Lorenz|first=Hendrik|chapter=Ancient Theories of Soul |date=2009|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2009}}</ref> The soul was considered the incorporeal or spiritual "breath" that animates (from the Latin, ''[[:wikt:anima|anima]]'', cf. "animal") the living organism. [[F. M. Cornford|Francis M. Cornford]] quotes [[Pindar]] by saying that the soul sleeps while the limbs are active, but when one is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals "an award of joy or sorrow drawing near" in dreams.<ref>[[F. M. Cornford|Francis M. Cornford]], ''Greek Religious Thought'', p. 64, referring to Pindar, Fragment 131.</ref> [[Erwin Rohde]] writes that an early pre-[[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] belief presented the soul as lifeless when it departed the body, and that it retired into [[Hades]] with no hope of returning to a body.<ref>[[Erwin Rohde]], ''Psyche'', 1928.</ref> Plato was the first thinker in antiquity to combine the various functions of the soul into one coherent conception: the soul is that which moves things (i.e., that which gives life, on the view that life is self-motion) by means of its thoughts, requiring that it be both a mover and a thinker.<ref name="Campbell, Douglas 2021">Campbell, Douglas (2021). "Self‐Motion and Cognition: Plato's Theory of the Soul". ''The Southern Journal of Philosophy''. '''59''': 523–544.</ref> ===Socrates and Plato<!--Linked from 'Emanationism'-->=== [[File:Sanzio 01 Plato Aristotle.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Plato]] (left) and [[Aristotle]] (right), a detail of ''[[The School of Athens]]'', a [[fresco]] by [[Raphael]]]] {{Main|Plato's tripartite theory of soul}} Drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the [[essence]] of a person, being that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn ([[metempsychosis]]) in subsequent bodies. However, Aristotle believed that only one part of the soul was immortal, namely the intellect (''[[Logos#Ancient Greek philosophy|logos]]''). The Platonic soul consists of three parts:<ref>{{cite book|title = The Gift of Logos: Essays in Continental Philosophy|last = Jones|first = David|publisher = Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year = 2009|isbn = 978-1-4438-1825-4|pages = 33–35|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=1RgaBwAAQBAJ&q=plato+soul+logos&pg=PA34|access-date = 2016-02-23}}</ref> # the ''logos'', or ''logistikon'' (mind, [[nous]], or [[reason]]) # the ''[[Thumos|thymos]]'', or ''thumetikon'' ([[emotion]], spiritedness, or masculine) # the ''[[Eros (concept)|eros]]'', or ''epithumetikon'' (appetitive, [[motivation|desire]], or feminine) The parts are located in different regions of the body: # ''logos'' is located in the head, is related to reason and regulates the other part. # ''thymos'' is located near the chest region and is related to anger. # ''eros'' is located in the stomach and is related to one's desires. Plato also compares the three parts of the soul or psyche to a societal [[Plato's tripartite theory of soul|caste system]]. According to Plato's theory, the three-part soul is essentially the same thing as a state's class system because, to function well, each part must contribute so that the whole functions well. Logos keeps the other functions of the soul regulated. The soul is at the heart of Plato's philosophy. Francis Cornford described the twin pillars of Platonism as being the theory of the Forms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.<ref>[[F. M. Cornford|Cornford, Francis]] (1941). ''The Republic of Plato''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. xxv.</ref> Indeed, Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that the soul was both the source of life and the mind. In Plato's dialogues, we find the soul playing many disparate roles.<ref>Campbell, Douglas (2021). "Self‐Motion and Cognition: Plato's Theory of the Soul". ''The Southern Journal of Philosophy''. '''59''': 523–544</ref> Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the ''Laws'' and ''Phaedrus'') in terms of self-motion: to be alive is to be capable of moving yourself; the soul is a self-mover. He also thinks that the soul is the bearer of moral properties (i.e., when I am virtuous, it is my soul that is virtuous as opposed to, say, my body). The soul is also the mind: it is that which thinks in us. We see this casual oscillation between different roles of the soul in many dialogues. First of all, in the ''Republic'':<blockquote>Is there any function of the soul that you could not accomplish with anything else, such as taking care of something (''epimeleisthai''), ruling, and deliberating, and other such things? Could we correctly assign these things to anything besides the soul, and say that they are characteristic (''idia'') of it? No, to nothing else. What about living? Will we deny that this is a function of the soul? That absolutely is.<ref>Plato, ''Republic,'' Book 1, 353d. Translation found in Campbell 2021: 523.</ref></blockquote>The ''Phaedo'' most famously caused problems to scholars who were trying to make sense of this aspect of Plato's theory of the soul, such as Sarah Broadie<ref>[[Sarah Broadie|Broadie, Sarah]]. 2001. “Soul and Body in Plato and Descartes.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 101: 295–308.</ref> and Dorothea Frede.<ref>Frede, Dorothea. 1978. "The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato’s Phaedo 102a–107a". ''Phronesis'', 23.1: 27–41.</ref> More-recent scholarship has overturned this accusation by arguing that part of the novelty of Plato's theory of the soul is that it was the first to unite the different features and powers of the soul that became commonplace in later ancient and medieval philosophy.<ref name="Campbell, Douglas 2021"/> For Plato, the soul moves things by means of its thoughts, as one scholar puts it, and accordingly, the soul is both a mover (i.e., the principle of life, where life is conceived of as ''self-motion'') and a thinker.<ref name="Campbell, Douglas 2021"/> ===Aristotle=== [[File:Aristotelian Soul.png|thumb|upright=1.5|The structure of the souls of plants, animals, and humans, according to [[Aristotle]], with ''Bios'', ''Zoê'', and ''Psūchê'']] {{further|Aristotle's biology}} Aristotle (384–322 BCE) defined the soul, or ''Psūchê'' (ψυχή), as the "[[first actuality]]" of a naturally organized body,<ref>{{cite book|last=Aristotle|title=On The Soul|page=412b5}}</ref> and argued against its separate existence from the physical body. In Aristotle's view, the primary activity, or full actualization, of a living thing constitutes its soul. For example, the full actualization of an eye, as an independent organism, is to see (its purpose or [[final cause]]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Aristotle |title=Physics |at=Book VIII, Chapter 5, pp. 256a5–22}}</ref> Another example is that the full actualization of a human being would be living a fully functional human life in accordance with reason (which he considered to be a faculty unique to humanity).<ref>{{cite book |last=Aristotle |title=Nicomachean Ethics |at=Book I, Chapter 7, pp. 1098a7–17}}</ref> For Aristotle, the soul is the organization of the form and matter of a natural being which allows it to strive for its full actualization. This organization between form and matter is necessary for any activity, or functionality, to be possible in a natural being. Using an artifact (non-natural being) as an example, a house is a building for human habituation, but for a house to be actualized requires the material (wood, nails, bricks, etc.) necessary for its actuality (i.e. being a fully functional house). However, this does not imply that a house has a soul. In regards to artifacts, the source of motion that is required for their full actualization is outside of themselves (for example, a builder builds a house). In natural beings, this source of motion is contained within the being itself.<ref>{{cite book |last=Aristotle |title=Physics |at=Book III, Chapter 1, pp. 201a10–25}}</ref> Aristotle elaborates on this point when he addresses the faculties of the soul. The various [[faculties of the soul]], such as nutrition, movement (peculiar to animals), reason (peculiar to humans), sensation (special, common, and incidental) and so forth, when exercised, constitute the "second" actuality, or fulfillment, of the capacity to be alive. For example, someone who falls asleep, as opposed to someone who falls dead, can wake up and live their life, while the latter can no longer do so. Aristotle identified three hierarchical levels of natural beings: plants, animals, and people, having three different degrees of soul: ''Bios'' (life), ''Zoë'' (animate life), and ''Psuchë'' (self-conscious life). For these groups, he identified three corresponding levels of soul, or biological activity: the nutritive activity of growth, sustenance and reproduction which all life shares (''Bios''); the self-willed motive activity and sensory faculties, which only animals and people have in common (''Zoë''); and finally "reason", of which people alone are capable (''Pseuchë''). Aristotle's discussion of the soul is in his work, ''De Anima'' (''[[On the Soul]]''). Although mostly seen as opposing Plato in regard to the immortality of the soul, a controversy can be found in relation to the fifth chapter of the third book: in this text both interpretations can be argued for, soul as a whole can be deemed mortal, and a part called "active intellect" or "active mind" is immortal and eternal.<ref>{{cite book |last=Aristotle |title=On The Soul |at=Book III, Chapter 5, pp. 430a24–25}}</ref> Advocates exist for both sides of the controversy, but it has been understood that there will be permanent disagreement about its final conclusions, as no other [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] text contains this specific point, and this part of ''De Anima'' is obscure.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/active-mind.html |title=Aristotle's Psychology |chapter=supplement: The Active Mind of De Anima iii 5) |access-date=2013-12-12 |last=Shields |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Shields |year=2011 |publisher=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> Further, Aristotle states that the soul helps humans find the truth, and understanding the true purpose or role of the soul is extremely difficult.<ref>{{cite book |title=Introduction to Aristotle |last=Smith |first=J. S. (Trans) |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1973 |location=Chicago |pages=155–59}}</ref> ===Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafis=== Following Aristotle, [[Avicenna]] (Ibn Sina) and [[Ibn al-Nafis]], an Arab physician, further elaborated upon the Aristotelian understanding of the soul and developed their own theories on the soul. They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and the [[Avicennism|Avicennian]] doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among the [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]]. Some of Avicenna's views on the soul include the idea that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of "The Ten Intellects", he viewed the human soul as the tenth and final [[intelligence|intellect]].<ref>Nahyan A.G. Fancy (2006), [http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615 "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404020329/http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615/ |date=4 April 2015 }}, pp. 209–10 (''Electronic Theses and Dissertations'', [[University of Notre Dame]]).</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Arabic and Islamic Psychology and Philosophy of Mind |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-mind/#Avi |publisher=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |date=29 May 2012}}</ref> While he was imprisoned, Avicenna wrote his famous "[[Floating man]]" [[thought experiment]] to demonstrate human [[self-awareness]] and the substantial nature of the soul.{{CN|date=January 2024}} He told his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no [[sense|sensory]] contact with even their own bodies. He argues that in this scenario one would still have [[self-consciousness]]. He thus concludes that the idea of the [[self (philosophy)|self]] is not logically dependent on any physical [[object (philosophy)|thing]], and that the soul should not be seen in [[relative term]]s, but as a primary given, a [[substance theory|substance]]. This argument was later refined and simplified by [[René Descartes]] in [[epistemology|epistemic]] terms, when he stated: "I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness."<ref>Seyyed [[Hossein Nasr]] and [[Oliver Leaman]] (1996), ''History of Islamic Philosophy'', p. 315, [[Routledge]], {{ISBN|0-415-13159-6}}.</ref> Avicenna generally supported Aristotle's idea of the soul originating from the [[heart]], whereas Ibn al-Nafis rejected this idea and instead argued that the soul "is related to the entirety and not to one or a few [[organ (anatomy)|organs]]". He further criticized Aristotle's idea whereby every unique soul requires the existence of a unique source, in this case the heart. Al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related primarily neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive that soul," and he defined the soul as nothing other than "what a human indicates by saying "[[I (pronoun)|I]]".<ref>{{cite thesis |author=Nahyan A.G. Fancy |year=2006 |title=Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288) |pages=209–210 |work=Electronic Theses and Dissertations, [[University of Notre Dame]]|url=http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404020329/http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615/ |archive-date=4 April 2015|publisher=University of Notre Dame}}</ref> ===Thomas Aquinas=== Following Aristotle (whom he referred to as "the Philosopher") and Avicenna, [[Thomas Aquinas]] (1225–74) understood the soul to be the first actuality of the living body. Consequent to this, he distinguished three orders of life: plants, which feed and grow; animals, which add sensation to the operations of plants; and humans, which add intellect to the operations of animals. Concerning the human soul, his epistemological theory required that, since the knower becomes what he knows, the soul is definitely not corporeal—if it is corporeal when it knows what some corporeal thing is, that thing would come to be within it.<ref>{{cite web|last=Aquinas|first=Thomas|title=Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate|url=http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/qdv02.html#51826|language=la|access-date=2016-02-23|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023626/http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/qdv02.html#51826|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> Therefore, the soul has an operation which does not rely on a body organ, and therefore the soul can exist without a body. Furthermore, since the rational soul of human beings is a subsistent form and not something made of matter and form, it cannot be destroyed in any natural process.<ref>{{cite web|last=Aquinas|first=Thomas|title=Super Boetium De Trinitate|url=http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/cbt.html#84681|language=la|access-date=2016-02-23|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304110654/http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/cbt.html#84681|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> The full argument for the [[immortality of the soul]] and Aquinas' elaboration of Aristotelian theory is found in Question 75 of the First Part of the [[Summa Theologica]]. Aquinas affirmed in the doctrine of the divine effusion of the soul, the [[particular judgement]] of the soul after the separation from a dead body, and the final [[Resurrection of the flesh]]. He recalled two canons of the 4th-century ''[[Gennadius of Massilia#De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus|De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus]]'' for which "the rational soul is not engendered by coition" (canon XIV)<ref>Cited in {{cite web|url=https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1118.htm#article2|title=Summa Th. 1:118:2, Objection 4}}</ref> and "is one and the same soul in man, that both gives life to the body by being united to it, and orders itself by its own reasoning."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1076.htm#article2|title=Summa Theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas - Pars I - Quaestio 76 - Article 3. Whether besides the intellectual soul there are in man other souls essentially different from one another?|translator-last1=Fathers of the English Dominican Province|year=1920}} Full citation of the canon: ''Nor do we say that there are two souls in one man, as James and other Syrians write; one, animal, by which the body is animated, and which is mingled with the blood; the other, spiritual, which obeys the reason; but we say that it is one and the same soul in man, that both gives life to the body by being united to it, and orders itself by its own reasoning.''</ref> Moreover, he believed in a unique and tripartite soul, within which are distinctively present a nutritive, a sensitive and intellectual soul. The latter is created by God and is taken solely by human beings, includes the other two types of soul and makes the sensitive soul incorruptible.<ref>''Summa th. '', Pars I, Quaestion 76, Article 3, Reply to Objection 1.</ref> ===Immanuel Kant=== In his discussions of rational psychology, [[Immanuel Kant]] (1724–1804) identified the soul as the "I" in the strictest sense, and argued that the existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved. {{blockquote|We cannot prove a priori the immateriality of the soul, but rather only so much: that all properties and actions of the soul cannot be recognized from materiality.}} It is from the "I", or soul, that Kant proposes transcendental rationalization, but cautions that such rationalization can only determine the limits of knowledge if it is to remain practical.<ref> Immanuel Kant proposed the existence of certain mathematical truths (2+2 = 4)m that are not tied to matter, or soul. {{cite book | last = Bishop | first = Paul | title = Synchronicity and Intellectual Intuition in Kant, Swedenborg, and Jung | publisher = [[Edwin Mellen Press]] | year = 2000 | location = [[Lewiston, New York]] | pages = 262–67 | isbn = 978-0-7734-7593-9}}</ref> ===Philosophy of mind=== {{Main|Philosophy of mind}} [[Gilbert Ryle]]'s [[ghost in the machine]] argument, which is a rejection of Descartes's [[mind–body dualism]], can provide a contemporary understanding of the soul/mind, and the problem concerning its connection to the brain/body.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ryle|first=Gilbert|title=The Concept of Mind|year=1949|publisher=University of Chicago Press}}</ref> ===Psychology=== Soul belief prominently figures in [[Otto Rank]]'s work recovering the importance of immortality in the psychology of primitive, classical and modern interest in life and death. Rank's work directly opposed the "scientific" psychology that concedes the possibility of the soul's existence and postulates it as an object of research without really admitting that it exists. "Just as religion represents a psychological commentary on the social evolution of man, various psychologies represent our current attitudes toward spiritual belief. In the animistic era, psychologizing was a ''creating'' of the soul; in the religious era, it was a ''representing'' of the soul to one's self; in our era of natural science it is a ''knowing'' of the individual soul." <ref name="Psychology and the Soul">{{cite book |last=Rank |first=Otto |title=Psychology and the Soul: Otto Rank's Seelenglaube und Psychologie |translator-first=William D.|translator-last=Turner |location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=1950 |page=11 |oclc=928087}}</ref> Rank's "Seelenglaube" translates to "Soul Belief". Rank's work had a significant influence on [[Ernest Becker]]'s understanding of a universal interest in immortality. In [[Denial of Death]], Becker describes "soul" in terms of [[Kierkegaard]]'s use of "self" when he says, "what we call schizophrenia is an attempt by the symbolic self to deny the limitations of the finite body."<ref>*{{cite book|last=Becker|first=Ernest|title=The Denial of Death|location=New York|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1973|isbn=0-684-83240-2|url=https://archive.org/details/denialofdeathbeckrich | page=76}}</ref> {{Poemquote |text=† Kierkegaard's use of "self" may be a bit confusing. He uses it to include the symbolic self and the physical body. It is a synonym really for "total personality" that goes beyond the person to include what we would now call the "soul" or the "ground of being" out of which the created person sprang.}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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