Soul Reflection Paper

In Phaedo, Socrates uses the soul and body to express the distinction between the forms and appearances. Socrates describes the soul as “divine, deathless, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, always the same as itself, whereas the body is most like that which is human, mortal, multiform, unintelligible, soluble, and never consistently the same” (Phaedo 80b). Furthermore, Socrates believes there is a “future awaits men after death” (Phaedo 63c) because it might be “a relocating for the soul from here to another place” (Apology 40d). Socrates believes “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death” (Phaedo 64a) because philosophers are stuck “in a kind of prison” (Phaedo 62b) struggling to acquire knowledge.

Plato’s theory of the simplicity of the soul is seen in the Phaedo. Through the mouthpiece of Socrates, Plato argues for a simple soul which only has one true aim. He states that the soul only seeks truth and that all other senses and experiences are merely distractions through the soul being embodied ‘the soul reasons best when none of these senses troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor pleasure, but when it is most by itself, taking leave of the body and as far as possible having no contact or association with it in its search for reality.’ (Plato, 1997, §65c). The simple soul can only aim to grasp the truth of reality which it gets closer to as man becomes closer to death. This is why, in Plato’s opinion, a philosopher in particular can

Mind-body dualism is usually seen as the central issue in philosophy of the mind. The problem with mind-body dualism is that it is unknown whether the mind really is a separate entity from the human body as Descartes states in his argument, or whether the mind is the brain itself. Descartes believed that in a person existed two major components, the physical body and the nonphysical body which was called the mind or soul. As a scientist, Descartes believed in mechanical theories of matter, however, he was also very religious and did not believe people could merely be mechanical creatures that ran like “clockwork.” And so, it was Descartes who argued that the mind directed thoughts. To account for this, he split the world into two parts,

They began to generally go with the first three answers, the mind and the body were separate on was physical and one was not and that the mind and the body could casually affect one another. The mention of those who believe in religion and what the mind represented was mentioned to further explain or provide different viewpoints or answers but most stayed the same in their

With this in mind Socrates and Glaucon agreed that the soul has at least two parts, the reasoning part and the desire part. Socrates gives the example of a thirsty man, he says that when the man is thirsty he would simply desire to drink, but the amount of how much he drinks or what kind of

Plato in his time was a dedicated student of Socrates, so most of Socrates “logos” and concepts heavily influenced Plato’s future literature. For Socrates, the mind or the soul is the ethereal force undermining and controlling the body, emotions, and thoughts. This soul, eternal and invisible to the senses, take on our body as its flesh husk. So as the body dies and

Rene Descartes dualism states that the mind and body are separate entities. The mind is a nonphysical, non-spatial substance; the mind and brain are separate existences, the brain is a part of the physical body and serves as a connection between the body and mind. Dualism is a hot topic of argument on whether the theory holds any validity or if it holds any truth. However, Cartesian dualism is a credible theory and has a lot of support to verify it.

explains his belief that the “soul exists before, and survives the body”. Plato 's beliefs of

Stopping the sleepless nights is what I have gained from this class. The two books Untethered Soul and Resisting happiness have allowed me to find my confidence and allowed me to love myself. This is my last year as an undergrad and I am will be applying to graduate school soon. The thought of this has been driving me crazy. I didn’t even see how much negative thoughts I had started to take in. These two books allowed me to not only be conscious of what I am doing and thinking but also provided me ways to improve the quality of life. This class was not only a spiritual journey but also has been an emotional and intellectual journey.

Descartes has a very distinct thought when thinking about the mind, and how it relates to the body, or more specifically then brain. He seems to want to explain that the mind in itself is independent from the body. A body is merely a physical entity that could be proven to be true scientifically and also can be proven through the senses. Such things are not possible with the meta-physical mind because it is independent of the body. Building on his previous premises, Descartes finally proves whether material things exist or not and determines whether his mind and body are separate from each other or not. In Meditation Six, Descartes lays the foundation for dualism which has become one of the most important arguments in philosophy.

The theory or doctrine of mind-brain identity, as its name implies, denies the claim of dualists that mind and brain (or consciousness and matter) are distinct substances. The tradition of dualism, whose clear-cut foundations laid by Rene Descartes (1596-1650) were built upon during succeeding centuries, sharply distinguishes between the stuff of consciousness and the stuff of matter.

In Descartes theory, known as Cartesian Dualism, states that the mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland. He believed that while two separate entities, the mind controlled the body but they could interact with one another. According to Crane T. and Patterson, S. (2001) “Descartes’ suggestive characterization of a human being as a res cogitans. If I am first and foremost a ‘thinking thing,’ an individual whose mind is an immaterial and non-extended substance, then I need to explain those relations which might be said to exist between my mind, so understood, and my body, when that is defined as a material, physical thing.” Other philosophers believed in another theory called monism. Monism is basically the belief that mind and matter are made up of the same thing.

There are many definitions but Aristotle came to his conclusion. As the soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural organized body. He uses two examples to show proof or to convey what he means which are the eye and the axe. He created this in order to accept whatever is correct in their views and avoid whatever is mistaken. Aristotle is successful in providing contrast to both the dualist and also the materialist which can serve as future philosophers to engage in deeper understanding of a nature of a soul. By this essay it shows step by step how Aristotle used his ideas and also his examples to convey that the soul must be a substance in the sense of a natural body having life potentially with in it into the soul being a first grade of actuality. For me it was very difficult to understand Aristotle in what he meant by the soul an also the ways he used it in his examples. After this essay it made me have more understanding of the soul and his way of explaining it because he explained something then he went into another in order to convey his idea by making sense. Now I have a better understanding than I had before. As Aristotle, he doesn’t give up until having his main idea by his examples and for it to be well

As Plato advocates that soul belongs to different order from body, so it cannot be set alongside the body as homogeneous entity. The soul’s penchant is towards another world. It becomes evident, why the senses are envisaged, not as windows but as bars, since so far as the physical nature of man is concerned it is not just a matter of noting, ontologically, the finite character of its existence, but rather one making an ethical and religious value-judgment on this earthly life form the viewpoint of higher destiny. Only when the soul has undergone an inner transformation and been duly prepared for this it can looks at the body in a fresh light, as it were, and so discover as meaningful affinity between soul and body, which serves to orientate man towards the higher reality.

body, the mind and the soul. The body is the physical part of the body