Month: April 2019

“As in this body the embodied soul passes through childhood, youth, and old age, in the same manner it goes from this one body to another; therefore the wise are never deluded regarding it.” – Bhagavad Gita

As so many words used in the common lexicon, the word ‘soul’ has an intuitive meaning for most readers. However in philosophy, we must clarify and agree on our terms to avoid misunderstanding and error. The unabridged Webster’s dictionary has 14 definitions, but the first two seem most useful for this site:

1.  The principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.

2.   The spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come.¹

Mortimer Adler, a 20^th century philosopher, when defining soul emphasizes the word is “used with negative understanding – i.e. not physical and not material.”² Dagobert Runes, another 20^th century philosopher, includes in his dictionary the entry ‘soul-substance theory’ wherein there is a “unity of the individual mind constituted by a single, permanent, and indivisible substance.”³  As such I will intend by  the word ‘soul’ generally to refer to an immaterial, indivisible, nature of man separate from the body.

One of the main problems in asserting the  soul as separate or distinct from the body is how the two are conjoined, that is, how an immaterial soul can operate within or perhaps outside a physical body. This mirrors the metaphysical question of the nature of reality; with the the conception of dualism where material and immaterial parts coexist and co-operate versus monism where there is only physical reality. If the monists are correct, believers in the soul  are simply conflating the body’s emergent features, such as consciousness, as discrete from its physicality. Obviously those who deny dualism and the existence of God or His immaterial essence will also reject the idea of a human soul as defined above.

We will revisit this debate when we get to arguments for and against the existence of the soul, but first we will review the two basic conceptions of the soul which is the subject of the next blog.

——————————————-

¹Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Barnes & Noble, Inc. 2003. ISBN 0-7607-4975-2, page 1822.

²Adler, Mortimer J., Adler’s Philosophical Dictionary. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996. ISBN 0-684-80360-7, pages 180-182.

³ Runes, Dagobert D., Dictionary of Philosophy. Philosophical Library, New York, 1960, page 296.

—————————————–

Having trouble leaving a question or comment?  E-mail me at gregoryciliberti@gmail.com

” ‘Do not forget Sanches”‘replied Don Quixote. ‘that there are two kinds of beauty, one being of the soul and the other of the body. That of the soul is revealed through intelligence, modesty, right conduct, generosity,  and good breeding, all of which qualities may exist in an ugly man, and when one’s gaze is fixed upon beauty of this sort and not upon that of the body, love is usually born suddenly and violently.’ ”- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote.

Following our quest to substantiate God’s existence, the logical next step is to turn our attention to the urgent question of the nature of man. The demonstration of the existence of God as the perpetual origin of the universe with material and immaterial attributes reverberates as the question of whether any individual part of the universe has similar characteristics. Within our immediate environment, man himself appears the most complex and advanced finite entity, and thus a reasonable possibility. This leads us to ask whether the presumptive characteristics of divine dualism and eternal existence apply to ourselves, although the premise of the question is not, from a philosophical standpoint, entirely sound.

Ancient religions and philosophy seem to accept the twofold nature of man as axiomatic. The existence of the physical body appears undeniable, but when man compares himself to inanimate matter, the differences are so profound that an added essence commonly known as the ‘soul’ seems necessary. Alternately stated, we instantly categorize things coming into our purview as either inanimate or living, and this difference is best explained by attribution of a special characteristic – in Greek, psyche, and in Latin, anima – both meaning ‘soul.’

While the question of two facets of human existence might seem on first glance to be purely academic, the real importance for us is the implications  the concept of ‘soul’ has in two key areas: morality and mortality. While the arguments for the existence of a human soul are tenuous, the philosopher must clarify the issue in order, to optimally characterize these key domains in the pursuit of a meaningful life.

Our systematic approach will follow these steps:

1.   Definition of soul

2.  Traditional conceptions of the soul

3.  Arguments for and against the existence of a human soul.

4.  Subjective rationale for the soul

5.  Deconstruction of the soul

6.  Synthesis

As in other subjects we have discussed, the reader may choose to skip this section if he already has fixed opinions, but time invested here will be rewarded with better understanding of later chapters. The existence or nonexistence of the soul and the specific conception one has will impact much of what follows.

—————————————–

Having trouble leaving a question or comment?  E-mail me at gregoryciliberti@gmail.com