Nature of the Human Soul - Term Paper Example

Nature of the Human Soul: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Me From ancient days to modern, the human soul has long been an intriguing topic for conversation, media, religious and political dissent, ritual celebrations, art, and scholarly dialogue. From soul-snatching sci-fi thrillers to pulpit-pounding theologians, from the execution of Socrates to Japanese fetus memorial spaces, from Soul Music to “The Scream,” the soul is variously explored. Three well-respected early scholars, who presented theories about the nature of the soul, are Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes. This paper will examine my opinion and the theories of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, across eight factors. The factors are: 1. type of approach used 2. mortality status 3. purpose 4. knowledge 5. types or parts of the soul 6. distinguishing characteristics 7. relation between body and soul 8. origin Plato takes a spiritual approach to understanding the nature of the soul. He sees the soul as an immortal being, whose origin is in a spiritual world of perfect forms. He contrasts this with the physical world, which is a mere imitation of this perfection (Page, 2003). There are three phases of the soul, relative to humans. There is a prenatal phase, the embodiment phase, and a postmortem phase. Plato believes that reason, emotion and desire comprise the soul (Velitchkov, 2009). They function with sequential differences from the womb, through life and after death. The purpose of the soul, from Plato’s perspective, is to carry knowledge to the body, but its duration there is of little meaning, since true meaning can only be in the spiritual world of perfect forms, not in this imitation world. In fact, Plato feels that the soul is distinct from the body, pre-dates and outlasts it, is imprisoned by the body, and achieves liberation only at death. Conflicts arise among human thoughts (connected to upper body tension), spiritual experience (connected to the chest area), and desires or appetites (connected to the lower region of the body) (Page, 2003). Knowledge is not so much transmitted as it is remembered, since the soul carries knowledge from one incarnation to the next, Plato’s version of anamnesis (Kowalczyk, n.d.). I support Plato’s spiritual approach. The soul cannot be measured by science, as it is apparently not bound by the laws of physics, the way the body and physical world are. I also support Plato’s theory that the soul is immortal, that it belongs to a world of spiritual perfection, of which our physical reality is a substandard imitation. At night, when I dream, I experience myself flying and changing physical reality with focused intention. I do not consider this to be my imagination, but rather my soul’s memory and deeper understanding of reality and thought. I believe that experience of freedom from the body is real, more real than body reality. Not only in dreams, but also in hypnosis, or with the inspiration of hallucinogens, or in a near-death experience, or other out of body experience, one can remember and appreciate freedom from the body. I support Plato’s contention that the soul carries all knowledge across incarnations, and brings it to the body in each current incarnation, so that it must be remembered and not re-learned (anamnesis) (Kowalczyk, n.d.). I believe this because of my own experience. For example, sometimes a friend or even a stranger approaches me and begins to outline a deep problem or confusion they are struggling with. I cannot possibly have all the answers, based solely on current life experience and education. Yet, once a deep rapport is established, my soul speaks. Of course the sound is my voice and comes from my body, and what I say is embroidered with my own thoughts. But the essence that flows freely is my soul, and not my body. Of this I am certain. I have had the experience of driving a car and becoming lost in thoughts, having no knowledge of where I am, passing my destination by miles. At such times, it seems clear to me that I am not in a safe state to be driving, since I am not even focusing on my location or physical context. Yet, I have no accident. Somehow my body drives. But how can a body drive without a mind to guide it? I can only conclude that there is a deeper, more experienced and capable consciousness that backs me up when my focus is irresponsibly distracted. I think it is my soul. Not only do I draw upon knowledge I am distracted from, but I sometimes draw upon knowledge I have no idea that I have. I have no training in fixing injured animals, yet I have successfully done so. I have carefully negotiated my way through situations I was otherwise ill equipped to handle, I once helped a friend find a house to rent by quietly following my intuitive compulsion to turn here and there, in a neighborhood I absolutely could not know, yet I did, and I led her directly to the house she then rented. If knowledge is only constructed through experience or transmitted in social learning, then I cannot explain these things. I can only conclude that there is more knowledge inside me than was put there in this lifetime. I can only imagine that it is held by my soul. Aristotle chose a more scientific approach to understand the nature of the soul. He saw the human soul as the source of movement, sensation, and reason. He felt that the body develops first and the soul develops later. This idea followed logically from his assumption that the soul is the sum total of body operation and function. Without the body, then, there is no soul. Thus he sees the soul as mortal. The purpose of the soul is development (Page, 2003). Aristotle, of course, defining the soul in terms of body function, saw plants and animals, as well as humans, as having souls. However, he theorized a hierarchy of functioning, leading necessarily to a hierarchy in the sophistication and value of the soul. Because the human soul could exercise rational belief and reason, then the human soul is a reward. Animals are lower than humans, and plants are the lowest of all (Page, 2003). My opinion is quite different, on nearly all counts, from Aristotle. First of all, it seems clear to me that science is not yet sufficiently developed to explain the soul and that, at least for now, we are better off taking a spiritual approach. Furthermore, I can see clear scientific explanations for movement, sensation, and rational thinking, mostly because I have the benefit of having been born at a time when scientific understanding is far more advanced and technology far more sophisticated in its measurements than was the case in Aristotle’s time. Consequently, I save spiritual approaches for the areas I believe are not suited for current scientific exploration. I can agree with Aristotle that the purpose of the soul is development. Aristotle introduced the idea of each soul carrying a potentiality, a life purpose that must unfold and actuate naturally (entelechy) (Demand Media, 2011)n. Only by being in touch with our potentiality and working toward its actuation, can living beings find contentment. I strongly support this idea. We should try to develop into who we have the potential to become. The soul includes an archetypal blueprint for what that is (Murrell, n.d.). I cannot agree on the mortality of the soul or on the inability for the soul to be sustained without the body. In my opinion, there are bodies with no souls (people damaged beyond repair by greed, abuse, hatred, jealousy), bodies with a soul (typical situation), bodies with part of a soul (such as when a Tibetan lama takes rebirth in more than one child at the same time), bodies with multiple souls (for example in the ancient times when a Tibetan king or lama would temporarily place his soul into his little Lhasa apso dog, to wait for a more auspicious time to depart, although his body had died), and souls without bodies (souls traveling in the astral realm or souls that are postmortem). I have a particularly strong difference of opinion from Aristotle, when it comes to his theory that humans are the highest form because only humans have reason, and that animals are lower and plants the lowest life forms. This is a very prejudiced notion. Whites enslaved Blacks and massacred Native Americans, based on the same genre of thinking. I think it is a dangerous idea to think we humans are the best and every other life form is less than us. It is an idea that can easily justify brutality and exploitation (Malcolm, 1973). If the dog is lower, then why not beat the dog? But this is wrong thinking! . On the news, I found an interesting report about a Basset Hound in the UK who dialed emergency services and saved his own life. He had become entangled in the telephone cord, and was having great difficulty in breathing. The emergency crew found his paw print on the correct numbers of the phone. Everyone expressed amazement, especially his owner (Toth, 2012). I find it less amazing that the dog called emergency services for help, using his reason, and far more amazing that everyone is so amazed by a dog doing that. If this were the only animal who had ever exhibited reason, then it would be amazing that he apparently did so. But various dogs in the US and UK have called emergency services. Stories have been passed around of dolphins who carried drowning victims to safety, chimpanzees that communicate in sign language, gorillas who use I-pads in zoos across the country, cats who summoned help for unconscious owners, dogs who traveled thousands of miles to return to their human families, dolphin midwives who deliver human babies in the South of France, young silverback gorillas who, without human intervention or modeling, dismantle traps that are risky, and a dog who showed up, uninvited and unescorted, to his owner’s funeral, miles away, on time. I cannot accept Aristotle’s soul hierarchy at all. Descartes’ approach is known as Cartesian dualism, and attends to both spiritual and scientific objectives. It is spiritual in that he sees God as the origin of the soul, a different origin and nature than the body (Custance, 1997). Also, he subscribes to a version of anamnesis, nativism, which indicates that God pre-programs the soul with all the moral and spiritual knowledge it needs, before occupying a body (Kowalczyk, n.d.). But Descartes is scientifically oriented in that he restates the soul as mind (a brave move into modern psychology), and locates the seat of mind/body interaction in the pineal gland (Custance, 1997). The soul brings consciousness and will to the body (Custance, 1997), implying that motivating thought and self-awareness are its basic functions. Descartes, like Aristotle, sees animals as inferior to humans, and he argues that they do not have a soul. He sees animals as mechanistic, claiming they lack mind, consciousness, self-awareness (Custance, 1997). I only want to point out the obvious: that any human who lives honestly and respectfully with an animal, paying attention to what he or she observes in the animal’s behavior, moods, and response history, knows that Descartes has gravely misunderstood the nature of animals. They are not machines, without mind. They are not automatons. They are capable of deep emotion, thought, and self-awareness, just as humans are. I suspect Descartes stumbled into his error, due to the culture in which he was immersed, lack of animal information and science, in his time, and failure to distinguish between animals that are mentally healthy and those who are abused, neglected, hungry, and post-traumatic. The same error might be made regarding humans, if one only considered profoundly neglected children, mentally ill homeless, or trafficking victims. I have a lot of respect for Descartes’ tactic of seeing mind and body as two very separate substances, yet understanding that consciousness/mind is indivisible and contained in every part of the body. Research studies indicate that cellular memory is carried in transplanted organs, from donors to recipients (Schwartz, 2002; Pearsall, Schwartz, & Russek, 2005). Descartes would, I suspect, have found this to be intriguing. Descartes’ theory that the soul is immortal certainly agrees with my own opinion, along with his idea of the soul as mind, independent from the body, with a function of carrying consciousness and will to the body. When I see a person who is mentally lost, horribly stressed, severely depressed, or perpetually ill with a sequence of otherwise apparently unrelated illnesses, I understand that they are experiencing soul loss or a failure of the will and mind. This paper has summarized the views of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and me about the nature of the human soul. The theories of Plato and Descartes are amply reflected in my own opinion, especially Plato’s version of anamnesis and Descartes’ emphasis of the soul as mind and absolutely distinct in nature and origin from the body. Aristotle and I have less overlap in our viewpoints, although we strongly agree on soul-encoded life purpose. I suppose my personal thesis could be stated as follows: that the soul is immortal pure mind; that it carries knowledge from the spiritual source of which it is a fractal, containing the whole, as well as knowledge from other incarnations; that it is a navigation system, guiding those who are in communication with it toward the fulfillment of individual life purpose; that being in synchronicity with the soul’s understanding and life purpose brings the deepest happiness and peace, while losing that synchronicity brings suffering and collapse. The soul energizes, motivates and informs the body, and interacts with it. The soul is energy and the body is matter. The soul initiates the development of the body, and the soul is still viable in a disembodied state, although a body is needed in order to activate potential. Humans, animals, plants and trees, stones, water, and even sunlight and moonlight all have souls, and they are all of the same nature, just expressed differently in various body types. None is superior or inferior to another. Souls connect all of nature, and are encoded to successfully do so. I find great satisfaction in clarifying my opinion, on this topic, both when it agrees and disagrees with those of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes. References Custance, A. (1997). Cartesian dualism: Mind and brain interaction. Retrieved from The Mysterious Matter of Mind: Chapter Two: http://www.custance.org/old/mind/ch2m.html Demand Media. (2011). Aristotle: On the soul. Retrieved from Essortment: http://www.essortment.com/aristotle-soul-39693.html Kowalczyk, S. (n.d.). Anamnesis. Retrieved 2012, from Internet Version of the Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://peenef2.republika.pl/angielski/hasla/a/anamnesis.html Malcolm, N. (1973). Thoughtless brutes. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 46 (pp. 5-20). American Philosophical Association. Murrell, B. (n.d.). Entechy and archetypal information. Retrieved from The Imaginal Within the Cosmos: http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/imaginal/imaginal1b.html Page, P. (2003). How does Aristotles approach to the nature of soul differ from Platos? Retrieved from Considered Capricious: http://www.consideredcapricious.com/plato_aristotle_nature_of_soul.html Pearsall, P., Schwartz, G. E., & Russek, L. G. (2005). Organ transplants and cellular memories. Nexus, Vol. 12, No. 3. Schwartz, G. E. (2002). Changes in heart transplant recipients that parallel the personalities of their donors. Journal of Near-Death Studies, Vol. 20, no. 3. Toth, W. (2012, March 28). Choking dog dials emergency "999" saves own life. Retrieved from Petside: http://www.petside.com/article/choking-dog-dials-emergency-999-saves-own-life Velitchkov, T. (2009, 2009). Platos views on the soul. Retrieved from The Philosophers Chair: http://thephilosopherschair.com/167-platos-views-on-the-soul Read More