Plato and Descartes on the Soul - Essay Example

?Full Plato and Descartes on the Soul The issue of the soul has always been a center of interest not only to the early philosopher but still is controversial until this time because as Glaucon had been surprised by Socrates’ statement, “Haven’t your realized that our soul is immortal and never destroyed?” to which the former replied, “No, by God, I haven’t. Are you really in the position to assert that?” (Lorenz), is also the modern man’s rebuttal. There perhaps can never be an end to the discussion of the topic until one soul will come and show us all where we could have been wrong and where we could have been right in our arguments about it. As the soul is not a physical being that we can say where it is while we know its existence or can we tell where it has gone or what happens to it when we know its demise. However, although the issue has never been quite resolved, enlightenment on the issue have been initiated by such great philosophers like Plato and Descartes whose thoughts would be the main sources of this paper, seeing where they meet and where they contrast. Plato is the well known student of Socrates who carried with him most of his mentor’s philosophies and brought them to the existence it enjoys until this day. The son of wealthy Athenians, he sought education from well known philosophers during his time and has learned a great deal from them, taking his education seriously. He had been a good student, looking to the benefits of education rather than squandering their wealth in the pursuits of young men his age when he was seriously following his teachers. Rene Descartes on the other hand is not just a French Philosopher but also a Scientist, Psychologist and Mathematician who is popularly known for his Cartesian system. He also known for his philosophy of ‘cogito ergo sum’ meaning, ‘I reflect, therefore I am’ meaning. This, he uses to support his stand in the existence of the soul whether in the body or after the destruction of the body. Having been influenced by the early Greek philosophers who believed that a person is not just a body but has a soul, both Plato and Descartes believed the same notion, yielding to the idea that the soul is immoral in contrast to what some Greeks held like Glaucon. While Glaucon believed that the soul is like breath or smoke that can be extinguished during death, Plato most agreed to his mentor, Socrates, when it comes to the understanding of the soul. In Phaedo, Plato displayed his conversations with Socrates which expressed the two philosophers’ agreements and disagreements. They argue that the soul is immortal because it is life and is life in itself as fire is heat and is heat by itself. Descartes on the other hand does not offer much to his belief about the immortality of the soul but probably has adopted the general notion that truly, the soul is eternal and he approached his philosophy with the help of Science. During his time, the pineal gland was a subject for study among philosophers and scientists and he held it as the seat of interaction of the soul and body but not the abode of the soul (Lokhorst). The pineal gland, to him is th place where all thoughts are formed (custance.org). He believed that the brain is different from the soul and made a distinct separation among the body, soul and brain. The body an brain are to simply mechanistic, taking for example the animals who do not have souls, act mechanically in response to the circumstances in their surroundings. Human beings on the other hand differentiated from the animals through their souls because even if they have bodies and brains like the animals, they have sense perceptions and physical passions. He further explains that though these passions are expressed through the body, the awareness of the actions lies in the soul. Similarly or more on the contrary, for Plato, the soul distinguishes animate from inanimate. He claims that it is what makes a body, living, breathing and moving (Lorenz). Plato then considers animals and plants to have souls from this point of view as opposed to what was formerly mentioned about Descartes’ arguments. He takes plants and animals to exhibit desire and sense perception because they have souls which are the life in them, making them move and live. In relation to these, he ponders on the function of the soul which he says are to grasp and appreciate truth as well as regulate and control body and its affections such as beliefs and pleasures, desires and fears. This philosophy puts Plato in question because there is no way one can prove that a plant or an animal has the ability of grasping or appreciating truth. One cannot know what a dog believes in, for instance, or what the desires or fears a dandelion has. If Plato experienced oppositions to his thoughts, Descartes was not an exception to such treatment. In fact, there has been more controversy to his arguments as other philosophers and scientists proved him to be wrong in his assumptions. For instance, his belief that the pineal gland was suspended in the middle of the ventricles was disproved by Galen, the supreme medical authority until the seventeenth century (Lokhorst). In addition, he believes the gland to be filled with animal spirits brought in through small arteries surrounding it but the same authority refuted that the gland was surrounded by arteries. Another argument of Plato that helped him to explain the immortality of the soul is the ‘cycle of opposites’ (Kemerling) wherein he believes that hot come from cold like a glass of cold water can come from a glass of hot water that became cold. Likewise, hot water can come from cold water as an awakened person comes from sleeping. One cannot say one has awakened from being awake. The same is true with the soul and body wherein the body dies, so the soul that goes out from it must be immortal, the opposite of the body. To this discourse, of course, like any other discussion that cannot show physical proof to its truth as mentioned earlier will still be put in question until proven otherwise. On the other hand, Descartes also presents another way of explaining how the soul could be different from the body with his ‘Dualism Theory’. Here, he explains that even if the body is lame, the soul is not, if the body is blind, the soul is not. This means that there are two different elements of a human being which are separate from each other and cannot be the same as the other which, when one dies, the other dies. Rather opposites take place, which could be similar to Plato’s ‘Cycle of Opposites’ when they are placed side by side. This issue until this day still stirs different interpretations and beliefs as well as great interest in such a controversial subject but most of the aforementioned philosophical views of both philosophers are now clearer to the modern thinker because of the studies that have developed through the years. Some of these studies have more or less been impacted by such discussions of scholars of earlier centuries. In some respect, their ideas have been generally attended to and those which were proven to be scientifically acceptable are now known as facts. However, in the subject of the soul, some still remain to be disputable. References Cartesian Dualism: Mind and Brain Interaction. The Mysterious Matter of Mind. 1997. Web. July 7, 2011. . Kemerling, Garth. Plato: Immortality and the Forms. Philosophy Pages. 2001. Web. July 7, 2011. . Lokhorst, Gert-Jan. Descartes and the Pineal Gland. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008. Web. July 7, 2011. . Lorenz, Hendrick. Ancient Theories of Soul. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2009. Web. July 7, 2011. . Read More