Revision:OCR A2 Philosophy - The Soul

TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Philosophy > OCR A2 Philosophy - The Soul

The Soul

The Problem

• Whether the mind and body are one of the same nature (monistic view) or whether they have two natures (dualistic view).
• What therefore happens when we die?

Dualism

This is the notion that humans have composite natures (the material part is the physical body and the non-material part is the mind/soul). The mind and body both exist though and are linked in some way.

Plato

Although Plato’s beliefs have changed over time, his general belief about the soul is that it is immaterial, and the real me. It is pre-existent and immortal. We come back in our next life as something better or worse depending on how we were during our previous life, until we fulfil our potential and enter a type of heaven.

Descartes

Our body is spatial but not conscious, while the mind is not spatial but is conscious. Even though this mind and body were separate, they interact within the brain. The state of the body will affect the mind and visa versa. When people die their body is left behind although their soul is able to continue with God.

There are problems with dualism though:

• How do souls and bodies interact if they are completely separate things?
• Gilbert Ryle dismissed dualism as a theory about ‘a ghost [mind] in a machine [body]’. He felt that this separation of the mind and body was a ‘category mistake’. Use the example of *Cambridge University and asking where is the university.

Materialism/Monism/Behaviourism

This is the view that the mind cannot be separated from the body

Aristotle

We are made up of two things a body (matter) and a soul or ‘psyche’ (the form), and (unlike Plato) the soul is an integral part of the body. You can’t have one without the other (e.g. a cake cannot be a cake without its ingredients or form). The soul animates the body, by organising a potential living body into an actual living body. Aquinas took on these ideas.

Ryle

Rejects the idea of the soul. All mental events are physical events interpreted in a mental way. But what if for example we were wishing? This is not a physical event. He believes that an individual is a physical living body and no more, and so when the body dies that’s it, the whole person is dead.

Dawkins

Biological materialist. Doesn’t believe in a soul. He believed that life is simply physical matter made up of DNA. We are the survival machines for this DNA as we are simply ‘gene machines’ driven by our genes to protect and duplicate themselves. He takes a reductionist approach believing that the mind is nothing but “a computer made of meat”. Evolution filters in the ‘good’ genes and filters out the ‘bad’. Does believe in consciousness though (as more important that DNA). Once the DNA has developed the brain, it can begin to think for itself as an individual and consider the consequences of its own actions. Is this simply what others call a soul though? And although Dawkins believes that everything points away from a creator, as Peter Williams pointed out, where did this information/DNA originally come from. Was there no mind behind this?

Hick

He is also a materialist although, unlike Dawkins, he believes in a life after death as well as God. Hicks Replica Theory believes that the soul cannot be separated from the body, and at the point of death on earth, God creates an exact replica of that person in another space. They would look the same and have the same memories. This theory is very vague though.

A Mixture Between Monism and Dualism

Aquinas

He modified Aristotle’s thinking. Believed that the soul is the form of the body and therefore the body needs the soul to give it life and the soul needs the body. The soul is the anima, the thing that animates the body and gives it life. What we do to our body and what happens to our mind process is closely linked. The body ages, but the mind does not though. At death the soul does leave the body though to enter purgatory before re-uniting with the body at the second judgement. This is a huge contradiction in his thought as the soul does split from the body!

Idealism

This is the view that the mind is the only reality and the body is unreal.

Bishop Berkeley

The mind is all that exists. Only our minds and perceptions are real. He believed that knowledge was only attainable by experience (therefore he is an empiricist). You can only know your experience on an object, but cannot know if the object really exists. A difficult one to refute although is largely rejected.

Exam Question

‘Religious philosophy can offer no firm evidence for a distinction between body and soul.’ Discuss.

‘The body/soul distinction is a myth invented by philosophers such as Plato.’ Discuss.

Comments

The notes are suitable for someone studying the topic of the soul for AS Level philosophy. The are aimed for the OCR exam board, but will also be suitable for other exam board specifications.

These notes were originally written by Helena224 in this thread on TSR Forums.