Plato, Aristotle and Descartes on body and soul Michael Lacewing

Plato’s Phaedo Death is the separation of the soul from the body When it is joined to a body, “the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance”

A separate soul I Souls can’t be destroyed The soul is unseen All unseen things are ‘simple’, they have no parts To destroy something is to break it into parts Objection: perhaps there are other types of destruction

A separate soul II Change is change from what something (currently) is to what it (currently) is not Life changes into not-life, death Becoming alive involves a change from not being alive Upon life, the soul is joined to the body - so the soul exists before birth Objection: not all change is like this - coming into existence is not a change into an opposite

Aristotle A person is an ‘ensouled body’ The soul is the ‘form’ of the living body - what does this mean? Four types of ‘cause’ or explanation Material: ‘that out of which a thing comes to be, and which persists’, e.g. marble of a sculpture Efficient: brings about change or rest, e.g. the sculptor

Four causes (cont.) Final: ‘the end (telos), that for which a thing is done’, e.g. the answer to why the sculptor made the statue Formal: ‘the account of the essence’, e.g. what a ‘sculpture’ is, so that we understand what the sculptor was doing

What is a heart? Material: muscle (flesh) Formal: pumps blood Final: sustain life by pumping blood Efficient: cell development guided by genes aiming at creating a living organism

What is a soul? ‘living is the being [the essence] of living things, and the soul is the cause and principle of this.’ (415b). What it is to be a living being is to live; and the soul is the formal, efficient and final cause of a living thing.

What is a soul? Final: living things live in order to live (stay alive) Efficient: living changes and develops our bodies; it changes and develops us as persons Formal: the activity of living provides an account of what it is to be what we are, a particular kind of living being.

Soul as form Matter endures (material cause). But we always identify matter by some form it has. With living beings, matter constantly changes. Living things are forms embodied in ever-changing matter. Even to refer to a ‘living thing’ is to privilege form over matter.

Human soul and body Different living things are capable of different kinds of lives: plants: growth and reproduction; animals: sensation; human beings: rational activity So each has a corresponding type of soul.

The intellect No part of the body corresponds to the intellect Each sense is limited to a type of experience But thought can be about anything So the intellect ‘seems to be another kind of soul, and this alone admits of being separated, as that which is eternal from that which is perishable’ (428b)

Descartes on the soul Aquinas developed Aristotle’s ideas, claiming the soul, intellect and the form were the same thing, and a separable substance Descartes agrees, but drops reference to ‘form’: The soul is the intellect and a separate substance from the body. Bodies work mechanically - they don’t need explaining in terms of the soul.

What am ‘I’?: the narrow view ‘I’ am essentially a soul, a thing that thinks that can be separated from a body. (Meditation II) But is Descartes right to think souls can be separated from bodies?

What am I?: the broad view ‘I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but…I am very closely united with it, and so to speak so intermingled with it that I seem to compose with it one whole.’ (Meditation VI) I am a person - an embodied soul. the soul takes on bodily experiences as its own, i.e. we refer our sensations, emotions, etc. to our selves.

What am I? essentially I am not essentially a person, because I could be the same ‘thing’ - a soul - without a body. I am essentially a person, since I am my psychological properties, and these depend on my body. I am essentially a person, because the unity of soul and body creates a new, distinct kind of thing.