The Human Soul: Nature, Relation to Body, and Immortality
The Affirmation of the Soul
Philosophers who have affirmed the existence of the soul: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes
The Knowledge of the Immaterial
We know things that are intangible, such as:
- Square root concepts: concepts familiar to us
- Judgments linking those concepts
- The arguments that link these judgments (including the “consequence” – that is, the link of the premises to the conclusion – is something not material).
Intangible objects would not be known if there were not in us something immaterial (to capture the possible, the subject that captures must be at least at the same level as the object grasped, or should be in the same “dimension”).
Therefore, there is in us, besides the material body, another active principle of a non-material nature, which we call mind or soul.
Free Will
We have free will to choose between several alternatives.
We know this:
- Immediately by evidence
- From the evidence of the legal and moral
- From the structure of the act of will
If man were made only of matter, he would not have free will. Therefore, man is not made only of matter but also of another reality, which is the active principle of free action, which we call the soul.
The Awareness of Personal Identity
We are reflectively aware of our personal identity (this reasoning is more subtle than the above): In the act of reflection, I am well aware that “I am myself, and that I remain the same through changes and different acts: I see, I hear, I think, I decide, I feel sad… but I remain always the same.”
Here is a full consciousness of identity, a perfect reflection of the mind, a total coincidence of the object with the subject, full transparency of the self to itself.
If I were just matter, this would not be possible. Matter is extended and is mainly made of separate parts. Therefore, I have a mind or soul that means I am not only extended matter.
Nature of the Human Soul
To affirm the human soul is to state that it is spiritual, which means that:
a) It is rational (able to think with reason about reality, open in principle to all reality [in this lies “ontological freedom”]) and free (able to say “yes”… and to say “no” to a reality).
b) It is immaterial, as we have seen.
For this reason, a man can create culture, reflect, and objectify.
The Problem of the Relation Between Soul and Body
No Relationship
· Leibniz
If I decide to move my hand and it moves, it is not really my soul influencing my body, but what happens is that God, knowing from eternity that I would make the decision to move my hand, ordered the monads of it to move at that time. This theory is known as the theory of pre-established harmony and has been studied in relation to freedom.
· Malebranche
states that whenever a created substance acts, it is God who produces the result. It is God who does everything and is the only one who actually acts on the occasion of the actions of creatures. This theory is called occasionalism.
Relationship
a) Accidental Union, with a weak relationship, like the pilot of a ship or the rider with the horse: Plato and Descartes
b) Substantial Union, with a deep relationship: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas. For these philosophers, all material things are composed of matter and form. The matter is the element that is determined, as in all bodies, and the form is the decisive factor, which makes a thing be what it is (e.g., what makes water be water, or sulfur be sulfur). This doctrine is called hylomorphism.
In living beings, the body is matter and the soul is the form. The soul is the form of a living body, i.e., what makes this body a living body, and precisely that kind of living body.
The Problem of the Immortality of the Soul
Already in ancient philosophy, the philosopher and scientist Pythagoras argued that the human soul is immortal. In Plato, this doctrine is one of the essential elements of his philosophy, and it reappears, many centuries later, after Christ, in the pagan philosopher Plotinus’ Neoplatonism.
The issue then passes to Medieval Philosophy (Thomas Aquinas, Augustine), which discusses the relationship between what the men of that era dictated by their reason and what their faith told them.
Also, Descartes, the French philosopher and father of modern philosophy, considered this a central question: one of his major works is known as the Meditations, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated. And Kant believes that everything associated with the soul is inaccessible by way of speculative “pure reason” (i.e., the reason that reflects on what is), so he opens another way, in a different sense, and argues that from the fact of moral duty, the immortality of the soul turns out to be a requirement (a “postulate”) of “practical reason” (i.e., the reason that reflects on what the person should do).
Philosophical reflection: The question of whether the spiritual soul can be naturally immortal is a problem faced only by those who affirm its existence (those who deny it may have other problems, but not this one). The arguments for this are as follows:
1) From the simplicity and immateriality of the soul. The human soul is immaterial; therefore, it is simple; therefore, it is indivisible; therefore, it is naturally immortal.
2) From the fact of moral duty and the need for an afterlife of reward and punishment. There is another reason, a requirement, that would be consistent with a positive response to the problem of the existence of God. It would be: I know I have moral duties, or that there are things that I and others should not do, things that are good and things that are wrong. I understand that doing good makes me a good person and doing wrong, however, makes me bad. This is stipulated by Kant, who says that the soul’s immortality is a postulate (i.e., a requirement) of the fact of moral obligation, which for Kant is a truism and an absolute starting point of philosophical reflection.