Before continuing with the exchanges with Richard, I want to make a brief diversion. At this point in the proceedings I answered a number of other posts, most of which are not worth repeating. One writer, however, did pose a worthwhile question by stating "Until someone offers a good summary of a soul, I cannot even begin to answer the original question." My reply follows. You can find the original posts in full here. There has not, so far, been an answer from the person who wrote the original post (a common occurence on this site, I'm afraid.)
The original post was made on 10 Jun 2008 at 08:10 pm. The first of my replies was made on 11 Jun 2008 at 03:30 pm:
I find your response to be very interesting and absolutely on the mark. I would like to take up your challenge of defining the idea of the soul. There are, I believe 2 enormous obstacles to overcome. In the first place there is a huge historical backcloth to the idea of the soul, going back many hundreds, if not thousands, of years and covering many different religions. The ways in which our ancestors understood the world was very very different from the ways modern thinkers tackle the issues. Having said that some of your own references bear an uncanny similarity to the Aristotelian tradition so sometimes old ideas do stand the test of time even if the context is different. So, obstacle number one is that there is too much material to easily summarise since there have been so many points of view.
Obstacle number 2 is that the context has changed. Throughout much of our history the idea of the soul was set in a context in which people believed in God and saw him actively intervening in their lives on a day to day basis. There was a huge sense that the world was under the direct control of God. Nowadays, we have a different obsession. Most people believe primarily in science as the discipline which explains how the world works and see God as a discredited part of the superstitious nonsense of history. There seems to be a prevailing view that a better understanding of the physical world precludes the idea that there can be anything more to it than that. So the modern challenge is to describe the idea of the soul in a way which is in sympathy with the material world.
I am going to give the matter some thought and post another reply to you when I am ready to offer you a fair summary of the idea of the soul which is relevant to today and accurate historically. Unless, of course, someone beats me to it!
My second reply was made on 29 Jun 2008 at 11:10 am:
I promised I would post again in response to your asking for a summary of what the term "soul" has meant historically. For the benefit of others reading this post you should have a look at my earlier reply to Kevin to see what problems I anticipated.
The idea of the soul as a psychological phenomenon is entirely absent in the ancient world. It was real. Indeed it might best be described as the breath of life, quite literally, capable of entering the body through a wound or the mouth. The ancients thought of a body as having life breathed into it by the soul which then inhabited it but might also leave it to become a free spirit. All ancient ideas, as far as I know, gave the soul attributes. Socrates, for example, describes a 3 part soul, comprising of logos (intellect), emotion and desire and he sees it as the essence of being. Aristotle, in contrast describes the soul as the core essence of a person but without a separate existence and without immortality, although the intellect, which is part of his 4 part soul, is immortal.
There is, as you rightly say, much emphasis in the ancient world on various places which are thought to exist and which become available to souls which are no longer inhabiting a body. Although these places change with the onset of Christianity, the principle survives in the idea of souls being saved and rewarded in Heaven in the after life. Less fortunate ones, of course, go to Hell! Both are immortal.
It is, of course, quite easy to dismiss these historical ideas from a modern perspective and certainly fewer and fewer believe in a world abundant in spirits and a God actively intervening in the world. The Western World, at any rate, is no longer dominated by the Church, as it once was.
However, the story does not end there. The philosophers Avicenna and Descartes looked at the idea of self-awareness, the essence of the self, as a primary given. This is an idea in logic in which an argument is either inductive or deductive. The latter contains nothing new whereas an inductive argument proceeds from some "given" starting point or premise. Both of them argued that the one thing you could not have doubts about was your own existence. This put epistemology (what it is possible to know for certain) into the forefront of philosophical thinking and for that alone it is immensely important, even if you reject everything else about Avicenna and Descartes. For Descartes this was a deductive argument and formed the basis of his belief that reason rather than perception formed the basis of knowledge.
The idea of the soul, at this point, has no attributes. It is a "ghost in the machine" which controls the body.
Whilst the Cartesian notion of a mind/body dualism is rarely argued today the issues which it raised live on. After all, each of us still has a unique point of view and can never be a different person seeing things as that person. So the idea of describing the self as first person and everyone else as inferred rather than known in the same way continues to attract. Also, there does appear to be some merit in noting that human beings have desires and intentions and purposes in contrast to machines or matter. Finally, it is difficult to conclude that all there is is the processing of matter because this does not explain why we have a universe or, indeed, how, since matter cannot of itself be the first thing at the beginning of everything which starts it all off, can it? If it is like that then there would seem to be no room for any kind of choice. Each of us is following a pre-determined pathway dictated by the exact rules of matter and what we think of as free will is, in fact, an illusion.
So, as you can see, the context has shifted. The modern argument is about the concept of the self rather than the soul and it is set in the context of the philosophy of science rather than religion. The issues, though, are remarkably enduring.
I hope this helps.
Tags: afterlife soul history religion Aristotle God science material world psychological phenomenon breath of life free spirit Socrates intellect emotion desire essence immortality Christianity Heaven Hell Avicenna Descartes inductive deductive existence epistemology reason perception ghost in the machine dualism intentions free will
Peter Rayner
The original post was made on 10 Jun 2008 at 08:10 pm. The first of my replies was made on 11 Jun 2008 at 03:30 pm:
I find your response to be very interesting and absolutely on the mark. I would like to take up your challenge of defining the idea of the soul. There are, I believe 2 enormous obstacles to overcome. In the first place there is a huge historical backcloth to the idea of the soul, going back many hundreds, if not thousands, of years and covering many different religions. The ways in which our ancestors understood the world was very very different from the ways modern thinkers tackle the issues. Having said that some of your own references bear an uncanny similarity to the Aristotelian tradition so sometimes old ideas do stand the test of time even if the context is different. So, obstacle number one is that there is too much material to easily summarise since there have been so many points of view.
Obstacle number 2 is that the context has changed. Throughout much of our history the idea of the soul was set in a context in which people believed in God and saw him actively intervening in their lives on a day to day basis. There was a huge sense that the world was under the direct control of God. Nowadays, we have a different obsession. Most people believe primarily in science as the discipline which explains how the world works and see God as a discredited part of the superstitious nonsense of history. There seems to be a prevailing view that a better understanding of the physical world precludes the idea that there can be anything more to it than that. So the modern challenge is to describe the idea of the soul in a way which is in sympathy with the material world.
I am going to give the matter some thought and post another reply to you when I am ready to offer you a fair summary of the idea of the soul which is relevant to today and accurate historically. Unless, of course, someone beats me to it!
My second reply was made on 29 Jun 2008 at 11:10 am:
I promised I would post again in response to your asking for a summary of what the term "soul" has meant historically. For the benefit of others reading this post you should have a look at my earlier reply to Kevin to see what problems I anticipated.
The idea of the soul as a psychological phenomenon is entirely absent in the ancient world. It was real. Indeed it might best be described as the breath of life, quite literally, capable of entering the body through a wound or the mouth. The ancients thought of a body as having life breathed into it by the soul which then inhabited it but might also leave it to become a free spirit. All ancient ideas, as far as I know, gave the soul attributes. Socrates, for example, describes a 3 part soul, comprising of logos (intellect), emotion and desire and he sees it as the essence of being. Aristotle, in contrast describes the soul as the core essence of a person but without a separate existence and without immortality, although the intellect, which is part of his 4 part soul, is immortal.
There is, as you rightly say, much emphasis in the ancient world on various places which are thought to exist and which become available to souls which are no longer inhabiting a body. Although these places change with the onset of Christianity, the principle survives in the idea of souls being saved and rewarded in Heaven in the after life. Less fortunate ones, of course, go to Hell! Both are immortal.
It is, of course, quite easy to dismiss these historical ideas from a modern perspective and certainly fewer and fewer believe in a world abundant in spirits and a God actively intervening in the world. The Western World, at any rate, is no longer dominated by the Church, as it once was.
However, the story does not end there. The philosophers Avicenna and Descartes looked at the idea of self-awareness, the essence of the self, as a primary given. This is an idea in logic in which an argument is either inductive or deductive. The latter contains nothing new whereas an inductive argument proceeds from some "given" starting point or premise. Both of them argued that the one thing you could not have doubts about was your own existence. This put epistemology (what it is possible to know for certain) into the forefront of philosophical thinking and for that alone it is immensely important, even if you reject everything else about Avicenna and Descartes. For Descartes this was a deductive argument and formed the basis of his belief that reason rather than perception formed the basis of knowledge.
The idea of the soul, at this point, has no attributes. It is a "ghost in the machine" which controls the body.
Whilst the Cartesian notion of a mind/body dualism is rarely argued today the issues which it raised live on. After all, each of us still has a unique point of view and can never be a different person seeing things as that person. So the idea of describing the self as first person and everyone else as inferred rather than known in the same way continues to attract. Also, there does appear to be some merit in noting that human beings have desires and intentions and purposes in contrast to machines or matter. Finally, it is difficult to conclude that all there is is the processing of matter because this does not explain why we have a universe or, indeed, how, since matter cannot of itself be the first thing at the beginning of everything which starts it all off, can it? If it is like that then there would seem to be no room for any kind of choice. Each of us is following a pre-determined pathway dictated by the exact rules of matter and what we think of as free will is, in fact, an illusion.
So, as you can see, the context has shifted. The modern argument is about the concept of the self rather than the soul and it is set in the context of the philosophy of science rather than religion. The issues, though, are remarkably enduring.
I hope this helps.
Tags: afterlife soul history religion Aristotle God science material world psychological phenomenon breath of life free spirit Socrates intellect emotion desire essence immortality Christianity Heaven Hell Avicenna Descartes inductive deductive existence epistemology reason perception ghost in the machine dualism intentions free will
Peter Rayner
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