Mind, Body and Soul
Dualism
Plato
Man is dual creature
Body
Changes
Bound to empirical world
Body acts as a barrier to knowing the Forms
Can die (mortal)
Soul
Immortal
Knows the Forms
Eternal - exists before and after body
Helps us recognise what objects are
Tripartite
Rational part
Includes reasoning, intellect and insight
Insight means we recognise truth, so can recognise the Forms and know reality
Represented by charioteer
Guides the other two parts of the soul, as it knows what is right
Represents ruling class in his Republic
Spirited/emotional part
Desires honour and glory, but does not know what is honourable (so needs rational part to guide it)
Represented by noble horse
A driving, motivating force which must be steered/controlled
Represents military class in the Republic
Appetitive part
Includes all of our cravings and desires
Represented by ignoble horse
Chaotic, unruly, motivating force that must be controlled/dominated
If unchecked, it could lead us to destruction
Represents working class in the Republic
Like workers who have power without a positive sense of direction
Desires should be dealt with when appropriate
Mind
Wants to understand the Forms
To do this, we must free ourselves from physical requirements
Goes back to World of the Forms after death
Some criticisms
Bernard Williams thought Plato tried to fit his psychological story to his political story by associating soul parts with classes
Some say Plato defended his society's flaws (including slavery and dominance of men over women)
Pre-Cartesian dualism
Mental activity is distinguished from the physical body
Cartesian dualism
Everything non-physical is part of 'mind'
Mind is where all thoughts are personal
Body performs physical actions, observable to all
Mind and body can interact with each other
Mind and body are separate
Descartes suggested through the pineal gland
Substance dualism
Mind and body are separate substances
Descartes could doubt his physical body, but not his mind ('Cogito ergo sum') - suggests they are different things
The body's properties can be physically measured
Anything without a physical location is 'mind'
The mind's 'whole essence is to think' so takes up no physical space
Led to Putnam's 'Brain in a Jar' experiment
Property dualism
Where everything is made up of one substance (matter), but this can have mental or physical properties
Descartes
Ideas form Cartesian dualism, he was a substance dualist
Our identity comes from our ability to reason
Our souls can continue with God after death
Was he really a dualist?
Believed animals were unconscious machines without minds
Imagined minds could exist without bodies - but did he really believe it?
'I am not just lodged in my body like a pilot in his ship, but I am intimately united with it, and so confused and intermingled with it, that I and my body compose as it were a single whole'
Criticised by Gilbert Ryle
Ryle accused Descartes of a category error
He said that the mind could be treated as an aspect of the way that the body functions
He used the example of someone being told they are to see a university, being shown the colleges and libraries and then asking where the university is
Something could be mental and physical according to Ryle, so Descartes assumption that something is one or the other is false
Ryle called Descartes' mind 'The Ghost in the Machine'
Epiphenomenalism
The complex nervous system gives rise to epiphenomena
Our thoughts and mind appear to be independent
Thoughts are produced by electrical impulses
Thoughts are above (epi-) the electrical impulses, not the electrical impulses themselves
We do not understand how the brain gives our experience of mind
Modern dualist view, close to materialism
Dualism evaluated
For
Against
Difference between personal thoughts and observable actions?
'I have a body' seems better than 'I am a body'
Provides an explanation for consciousness
Our identity does not seem purely physical
Allows for an afterlife
Explains 'out of body' experiences?
The body's existence can be doubted
Neuroscience shows brain function in thought
We think of ourselves as a single being, not divided
Physical things affect the mind (e.g. fatigue, drugs etc)
Connection between mind and body is unclear
Language may suggest we are more than just a physical body, but it does not make it true
The mind could be an evolved aspect of the body
Identity can come from physical characteristics
Materialism
Aristotle
The soul is the life principle
'Psyche' (soul) means life in a general sense
The soul is the form of the body - it gives us our characteristics (provides us with form, efficiency and telos)
Having a soul is like having a skill
Different organisms have different kinds of soul
Nutritive or vegetative soul
Type that all organisms have - even plants
Powers of nutrition, growth and reproduction
Locomotive soul
Type that all animals have
Can have desires and feelings, so gives ability to move
Ability to reason
Unique to humans
Allows us to grasp 'universals' - the idea of goodness, not just something that is good
We can develop our ethical and intellectual character
The soul is in the here and now, not the eternal
The soul and the body are inseparable
It gives the body its powers, capabilities and functions
The soul cannot survive death - it ceases to exist when the body dies
He uses a wax analogy
'One should not ask if the soul and the body are one, any more than one should ask if the wax and the shape are one'
But he seems to see thought as immortal
Aquinas (dualist?)
Agreed with Aristotle - soul is what gives body life
Only things which are divisible decay
As the soul is not divisible, then it is able to survive death
Each soul becomes individual
The soul that departs the body retains the individual identity
Reductionism
Thomas Hobbes
Humans fear death, so long to be immortal
There is nothing but material things, all non-material things are false
The entire universe consists of matter in motion
Emotions are the first endeavours of motion (motion on a small scale)
Richard Dawkins
Argues that humans are entirely material - we are 'survival machines'
Calls Plato's ideas of the soul 'Soul One' and disregards it as primitive superstition
Calls Aristotle's ideas of the soul 'Soul Two' as the precise nature of this is yet to be explained
Finds no empirical evidence for the existence of the soul
Suggests that DNA may explain the phenomenon of consciousness
Everything 'mental' is actually physical
Emotions are psycho-chemical reactions
Thoughts are electrical impulses in the brain
A person is a brain with a body and nervous system
Behaviourism
Every emotion can be reduced down to a physical action
Sadness can be reduced down to tears
Happiness can be reduced to laughter or smiling
Pain can be reduced to crying out
B.F. Skinner
Every mental action or emotion is a learned behavioural response
Link to Pavlov's dogs, where dogs salivated before seeing the actual food as they recognised the process that led to them getting food
Criticised by Daniel C. Dennett
Human intelligence should not be put on the same level as other animals - we seem to have more mental capabilities
Not everything is a learned response - to suggest that reading is a learned response makes no sense
Criticised by Anscombe?
Pointing to a chess piece is not explained by the action - there are any number of reasons why you would, so more than a physical explanation is required
Materialism evaluated
For
Against
May fit better with scientific/evolutionary theory
Has no issues with how body and soul would work together
Based on empirical evidence
Does not explain consciousness
Emotions do not seem purely physical
'I have a body' not 'I am a body'
Mind is an aspect of how the body functions
Richard Swinburne and Keith Ward - losing belief in the soul could have a damaging effect on ethics