The “Soul”

There’s a lot of (mostly very obscure) talk about “the soul” here and elsewhere. (Is it supposed to be different from you, your “mind,” your “ego” etc.? Is it some combo of [some of] them, or what?)  A friend recently passed along the following quote from psychologist James Hillman that I thought was nice–and maybe demystifying–at least a little bit.

By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment — and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.

It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate — an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence — that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives one the sense of having or being soul. However intangible and indefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently being identified with the principle of life and even of divinity.

In another attempt upon the idea of soul I suggest that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth some years ago. I had begun to use the term freely, usually interchangeably with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, soul refers to the deepening of events into  experiences; second, the significance soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by soul I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy — that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”

James Hillman — Re-Visioning Psychology

776 thoughts on “The “Soul”

  1. Erik: Alternatively, explain how mind-brain identity theory does not entail the mind-reading ability by o

    There’s no reason to believe that if mental events are identical to physical events that we must be able to “read off” every “mental property” from those “physical properties” we know about. Why should it? We can’t even read off every physical property from those physical properties we know about. The question betrays a confusion between knowledge de dicto and knowledge de re. (Go read your Plantinga.)

    You’re welcome.

  2. walto: There’s no reason to believe that if mental events are identical to physical events that we must be able to “read off” every “mental property” from those “physical properties” we know about. Why should it?

    Because regularly I encounter statements by mind-brain identity theorists like the following:

    Patrick: The idea of an ideal triangle is represented by physical states and patterns in your physical brain.

    If there’s no implication that we should be able to read off an ideal triangle from physical brain states, then what justifies the statement that the ideal triangle is represented by physical states and patterns in your physical brain? And more, that this is a given in science (instead of in ludicrous twisted scientism).

    walto: We can’t even read off every physical property from those physical properties we know about. The question betrays a confusion between knowledge de dicto and knowledge de re.

    I know and I agree. Is there a way to inform Patrick about it?

  3. vjtorley:
    All right, I’ll have a go at defining the soul.

    For any organism x belonging to a natural kind F, x’s soul is the truthmaker for its being an F.

    That’s an Aristotelian definition, and as you can see, it presupposes essentialism, which may sound uncongenial to evolutionists, but need not do so. Although species change over time, they change very slowly, and at any given moment, the biosphere appears to be made up of clearly defined types of organisms.

    I like this very much, and it has some interesting features worth noting.

    Firstly, it touches nicely on the vexed question of essentialism in biology. John Dupre, in his The Disorder of Things, defends the striking view that the ontology of species is discourse-dependent. When we’re doing evolutionary theory, it makes sense to think of species as individuals (in the metaphysical sense): species are individuals in just the same way that crowds or teams are (metaphysical) individuals. But when we’re doing ecology, it makes sense to think of species as kinds or types.

    We get different ontological commitments about what species are, depending on how the concept of “species” is being used to organize a set of epistemic practices.

    (It’s a rather radical pragmatism, but one that I find quite congenial and helpful!)

    Taking that line of thought, and folding in Torley’s re-introduction into this discussion of psuche as the form of a living being, we can say that soul or psuche is ecological role. The soul of a living thing is the habits that characterize its ecological role.

    Based on my admittedly superficial acquaintance with De Anima (I only read it once and haven’t made a careful, systematic study of it), I think that Aristotle would accept that.

    A form (morphe) is the organizing or structuring principle that actively unifies a thing and makes it the kind of thing that it is. I think there’s a good case to be made that ecological role does that kind of work for organisms: if you want to understand what makes an organism the kind of organism that is, look at the ecological role of the organism and the history of that role.

    But taking that sort of neo-Aristotelian/neo-Darwinian approach to the ontology of soul pushes us pretty far away from considerations about the ontology of mind, whether as sentience or as sapience.

    The real question that needs to be answered concerning the soul is whether it can be said to act and/or experience in its own right, or whether actions and feelings can only be ascribed to organisms as such. I would hold that certainly for humans (and probably also some mammals and birds), there are certain kinds of actions that we perform and experiences that we undergo, which cannot be characterized as bodily processes, although they certainly supervene on underlying bodily processes. For these actions and experiences, then, we need to posit the soul as a subject. But that doesn’t commit us to the Cartesian belief that soul and body are two things: a spirit acting on an animal. When Aquinas argues that the act of intellect is not the act of a bodily organ, he is not showing that there is a non-animal act engaged in by human beings. He is showing, rather, that not every act of an animal is a bodily act. The human soul, with its ability to reason using language, does not distinguish us from animals; it distinguishes us as animals.

    If the body is just the hule or matter of a living thing, then not even breathing and walking are “bodily”. Everything that a body does is expressive of the activity of the soul at work in organizing the body and making it a living body. (I’ve often thought that the most accurate translation of psuche, transposing from Aristotle to contemporary biology, is what we call “metabolism”.)

    I quite agree with the neo-Aristotelian (though actually much closer to Herder and Hegel) that focuses on language as what is ontologically distinct of human beings, and that language distinguishes us as a kind of animal. That’s quite true. But a neo-Aristotelian wouldn’t want to say that speaking is not embodied but that running is. Running is one way of being an animal, one way in which soul is manifest in the world, and speaking is another.

  4. Erik,

    That e.g. perception is a matter of representational states is a highly controversial view–with disjunctivists on one side and qualiaphiles on the other. There’s nothing like a consensus among philosophers, psychologists, or neurophysiologists on the matter. Patrick, of couirse, knows nothing about any of that. He just does what people do on sites like this: pontificate a view that he finds congenial, over and over again. As mung said, no group has a patent on bad arguments–or the repetitive spouting of them.

    But that’s not the main reason I can’t help you with patrick. He either doesn’t read my posts or pretends not to. Our antipathy, you may recall, began when I called him on bullying you.

  5. fifthmonarchyman:
    I exist and I am not the same thing as my materiel body.

    Bald, ridiculous assertion. You have provided no evidence that you are anything but your material body.

    I know this because you could duplicate every atom in my body and lay the exactly cloned result next to me in your presence and I know there would not be two of me in front of you.

    You don’t know that, you’re merely asserting it and equivocating on the word “me”. If you were somehow immediately replicated, there would be two people with the same brain states, including memories, that would immediately begin to diverge. Without some way of distinguishing the original from the copy, both would claim to be you.

    Regardless, this gedankenexperiment provides no support for the idea that minds are anything other than physical processes.

    Would you care to address the actual issue now?

    This is the actual issue the problem is you are so far down the rabbit hole of your materialist presuppositions that you are unable to even see it.

    I’m asking you to support your claims with evidence and logic. Thus far you have not done so. Care to try again?

  6. Erik:

    The idea of an ideal triangle is represented by physical states and patterns in your physical brain.

    Show me a neuroscientist who says the same thing. “Hmm, this guy’s brain states and patterns represent an ideal triangle. That’s what he must be thinking about.”

    The burden of proof is on those who claim that something other than the physical processes we observe is involved. That being said, neuroscientists are making progress on decoding mental states.

  7. walto: Yes, it is certainly confusing, especially when one doesn’t simply yell “Revelation–I win!” or “Scriptures!” every time one is stuck.

    As apposed to “go read Quine to see why you are wrong ” or simply asserting with out support “your view is fallacious and lots of bad philosophy has resulted from it”.

    It seems we all have our “scripture” and our “revelation” it’s just that some of it is an inadequate foundation for knowledge.

    peace

  8. Patrick: The burden of proof is on those who claim that something other than the physical processes we observe is involved.

    No the burden of proof is on those who assert with out evidence that the only thing we know for certain exists (our mental self) is composed only of stuff that we can’t be positive exists at all “physical processes”.

    I get tired of this constant frediean tactic of holding up the “burden of proof” as if it some sort of get out of jail free card for intellectual engagement.

    I’d like to know who made you the official decider on the proof burden and why anyone else should care

    peace

  9. Erik:
    . . .
    Then you evidently have, by reading their works more thoroughly than I have, found the answer to the question how it’s possible to read someone else’s mind by looking at brain states and patterns – the very thing Patrick asserted recently.

    That is not what I asserted. Please don’t attempt to put words in my mouth.

    I simply observed that all available evidence suggests that the mind is a physical process. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.

  10. Patrick: I simply observed that all available evidence suggests that the mind is a physical process. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.

    I know for certain my mental self exists. I have no way of knowing for certain “physical processes” exist.

    Thus is the evidence. Claims to the contrary are just bluster,

    peace

  11. fifthmonarchyman:

    The burden of proof is on those who claim that something other than the physical processes we observe is involved.

    No the burden of proof is on those who assert with out evidence that the only thing we know for certain exists (our mental self) is composed only of stuff that we can’t be positive exists at all “physical processes”.

    I have no idea what you’re talking about here. You’re the one claiming that something “immaterial” is involved in consciousness. What evidence do you have for that?

    I get tired of this constant frediean tactic of holding up the “burden of proof” as if it some sort of get out of jail free card for intellectual engagement.

    I can see how requests for evidence could get tiring when you have none to support your deeply held position.

  12. fifthmonarchyman: It seems we all have our “scripture” and our “revelation” it’s just that some of it is an inadequate foundation for knowledge

    Nobody claims Quine is omniscient therefore the only foundation of knowledge is a major difference.

  13. fifthmonarchyman: I know for certain my mental self exists. I have no way of knowing for certain “physical processes” exist.

    Thus is the evidence

    That is only evidence of your ignorance.

    If your best response is to retreat into solipsism or nihilism, that speaks volumes about the support you have for your claims.

  14. newton: Nobody claims Quine is omniscient therefore the only foundation of knowledge is a major difference.

    I agree.
    What exactly is the foundation for your knowledge? Do you have one?

    peace

  15. Patrick: If your best response is to retreat into solipsism or nihilism, that speaks volumes about the support you have for your claims.

    It’s not a retreat. It’s a proper expression of who really has the burden of proof here.

    Now if you want to actually intellectually engage we can have a discussion. I won’t hold my breath

    peace

  16. fifthmonarchyman:
    I know for certain my mental self exists. I have no way of knowing for certain “physical processes” exist.

    I don’t think you know certain whether the mental self you think exists, actually exists.

    I agree the physical world could be a illusion, but to hold that position there are still uncertainties. Lacking omniscience there always will be by definition

  17. Patrick:
    That is not what I asserted. Please don’t attempt to put words in my mouth.

    I simply observed that all available evidence suggests that the mind is a physical process. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.

    No, this is not what you “observed”. You “observed” the following, “The idea of an ideal triangle is represented by physical states and patterns in your physical brain.”

    And next you “observed” that you don’t have to prove your claim. Instead, those who disbelieve it must disprove it. You “observed” it by saying the following,

    Patrick: The burden of proof is on those who claim that something other than the physical processes we observe is involved.

    Thus far you are totally full of baseless physicalist crap. But there’s more.

    Patrick: That being said, neuroscientists are making progress on decoding mental states.

    Quote from there: “Recent advances in human neuroimaging have shown that it is possible to accurately decode a person’s conscious experience based only on non-invasive measurements of their brain activity. Such ‘brain reading’ has mostly been studied in the domain of visual perception, where it helps reveal the way in which individual experiences are encoded in the human brain. The same approach can also be extended to other types of mental state, such as covert attitudes and lie detection. Such applications raise important ethical issues concerning the privacy of personal thought.”

    So, in direct contradiction to yourself, you ARE saying that brain-reading is mind-reading.

    Thanks for clearing it all up for me. And for walto, too, because he didn’t know of a mind-brain identity theorist who would assert brain-reading.

  18. newton: I don’t think you know certain whether the mental self you think exists, actually exists.

    Cogito ergo sum and all that.

    I know there are objections and I suppose we could go down that road if you like but that is a far cry from asserting as a given that the material exists and demanding evidence for the immaterial.

    newton: but to hold that position there are still uncertainties. Lacking omniscience there always will be by definition

    I definitely agree with this one. It’s my spiel after all
    😉

    peace

  19. fifthmonarchyman: You can’t imagine a ruler next to a triangle?

    Accurately enough to measure the side, nope.

    Your lost tape does not help if you are measuring something in your mind.

    if you can’t be certain that the external world exists, it is uncertain whether or not my tape and the board are external to my mind.

    In order for something in the physical universe to be of benefit to your mental world you need to use the mental tools of abduction and analogy

    Then the inability to measure the mental thought of a board is evidence that the physical world exists.

  20. fifthmonarchyman: I know there are objections and I suppose we could go down that road if you like but that is a far cry from asserting as a given that the material exists and demanding evidence for the immaterial.

    The evidence should concern the ability of the immaterial to do what you it does.

  21. newton: Accurately enough to measure the side, nope.

    I’m doing it right now.

    I’m imagining a ruler with 3 marks next to a triangle with a side that spans the first two marks. That measurement is 100% accurate

    newton: Then the inability to measure the mental thought of a board is evidence that the physical world exists.

    I have no such inability.

    peace

  22. newton: The evidence should concern the ability of the immaterial to do what you it does.

    Why? It’s seems to me that my immaterial mind is fully capable of dreaming up the entire materiel universe.

    peace

  23. fifthmonarchyman: I know for certain my mental self exists. I have no way of knowing for certain “physical processes” exist.

    Again, this is a de re/de dicto confusion. Better go read your Plantinga (or Quine, who had problems with that distinction and went an entirely different route, but also found a way not to make the mistake you are making–

    I’m sorry, fifth, but it’s an elementary fallacy, very widely known about since Frege:

    I know that the guy over there is wearing a hat. I don’t know that Jones is wearing a hat. Therefore the guy over there is not Jones.

    I get you don’t like hearing when you make mistakes. No one does. But they’re mistakes for all that.

  24. newton: I don’t think you know certain whether the mental self you think exists, actually exists.

    I agree the physical world could be a illusion, but to hold that position there are still uncertainties. Lacking omniscience there always will be by definition

    His error is simpler than that.

  25. fifthmonarchyman: I know for certain my mental self exists. I have no way of knowing for certain “physical processes” exist.

    Thus is the evidence. Claims to the contrary are just bluster,

    You just hit upon the reason that I think dualism arose as a concept, and the reason it still has traction. We cannot directly sense all the neuronal signals that give rise to consciousness, so it feels to us that our consciousness just appears, out of “thin air”, with no connection to our body or brain. I suspect that if we could sense those billions of signals, it would likely be so much information that it would drive us insane.

    But neuroscience today has many tools that are showing us those signals that are associated with various brain states. So far, the evidence makes it clear that every thought you have is the result of biochemical processes in the brain.

    This is an example of how our personal experiences can deceive us, and we have to take a wider view to understand the underlying reality.

  26. fifthmonarchyman: I know for certain my mental self exists. I have no way of knowing for certain “physical processes” exist.

    Thus is the evidence. …

    Weak “evidence”. You do have a way of knowing for certain the physical processes exist: study neurology and biology. If you choose not to, that is not evidence against those physical processes.

    fifthmonarchyman:… Claims to the contrary are just bluster …

    … claims the blustering person who does not bother to inquire further.

    sean s.

  27. fifthmonarchyman: It’s seems to me that my immaterial mind is fully capable of dreaming up the entire materiel universe.

    We can ignore everything that fifth says. That’s because he doesn’t actually exist. He is merely a figment of his own imagination.

  28. Erik: Thanks for clearing it all up for me. And for walto, too, because he didn’t know of a mind-brain identity theorist who would assert brain-reading.

    Are you referring to this remark of mine?

    A. I don’t know any materialists who reject introspection (and I know more materialists than you do).

    B. Mind-brain identity theorists, whether they’re right or wrong, spend much more time thinking and writing about what their view entails than you do.

  29. walto,

    Yes. Doesn’t it look to you like Patrick holds to mind-brain identity plus brain-reading, which in my view are inseparable?

  30. Erik:

    That is not what I asserted. Please don’t attempt to put words in my mouth.

    I simply observed that all available evidence suggests that the mind is a physical process. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.

    No, this is not what you “observed”. You “observed” the following, “The idea of an ideal triangle is represented by physical states and patterns in your physical brain.”

    And next you “observed” that you don’t have to prove your claim. Instead, those who disbelieve it must disprove it. You “observed” it by saying the following,

    The burden of proof is on those who claim that something other than the physical processes we observe is involved.

    Thus far you are totally full of baseless physicalist crap. But there’s more.

    Name calling isn’t evidence. If you think that there is something other than physical processes taking place within physical brains leading to consciousness, please present your evidence and arguments for such.

    That being said, neuroscientists are making progress on decoding mental states.

    Quote from there: “Recent advances in human neuroimaging have shown that it is possible to accurately decode a person’s conscious experience based only on non-invasive measurements of their brain activity. Such ‘brain reading’ has mostly been studied in the domain of visual perception, where it helps reveal the way in which individual experiences are encoded in the human brain. The same approach can also be extended to other types of mental state, such as covert attitudes and lie detection. Such applications raise important ethical issues concerning the privacy of personal thought.”

    So, in direct contradiction to yourself, you ARE saying that brain-reading is mind-reading.

    No, I never said anything about brain reading or mind reading prior to posting that link. Any such implication is purely in your own mind. Further, I merely offered that link as yet more evidence that the mind is what the brain (physically) does.

  31. fifthmonarchyman:

    If your best response is to retreat into solipsism or nihilism, that speaks volumes about the support you have for your claims.

    It’s not a retreat. It’s a proper expression of who really has the burden of proof here.

    That would be the person making all the unevidenced claims about gods.

    Now if you want to actually intellectually engage we can have a discussion. I won’t hold my breath

    Probably a good idea, given your history of refusing to intellectually engage here. Spewing your childhood indoctrination under the banner of revelation most definitely does not qualify.

  32. If the human mind is a physical process in our brains (an idea I subscribe to) then the idea of an ideal triangle would be instantiated in the physical material of our brains. I don’t know whether this occurs at the cellular, molecular, atomic, or quantum levels; or with involvement of several or all of them.

    The burden of proof is on anyone making any claim. Dualists have the burden of proof for their ideas, materialists or physicalists [sic] for theirs. No one has a special burden.

    If one thinks that there is something other than physical processes taking place within physical brains leading to consciousness, it is their burden to present their evidence and arguments for such.

    Neuroscientists are making advances in this area, and publishing results. But by no means have they provided a complete picture of how the mind works as a strictly physical process in the brain. Perhaps they will soon. Perhaps never. We just don’t know yet.

    On the other hand, I am not aware of any evidence in support of a dualist explanation. Many arguments, but no credible evidence. Let’s see what they can come up with.

    At the end of the day, a perfectly valid conclusion could be “we still don’t know.”

    sean s.

  33. Erik:
    walto,

    Yes. Doesn’t it look to you like Patrick holds to mind-brain identity plus brain-reading, which in my view are inseparable?

    They are separable.

  34. sean samis: On the other hand, I am not aware of any evidence in support of a dualist explanation. Many arguments, but no credible evidence. Let’s see what they can come up with.

    Like ID, they don’t seem to bother with discovery or “coming up with” anything.

    They assert.

    Glen Davidson

  35. Erik: Did Patrick separate them or not? Obviously not.

    Your turn. Show how they are separable.

    Maybe I missed it, Erik, but when did you show they were inseparable?

    While we’re waiting on others, maybe you could show us that… if you can.

    sean s.

  36. I’ve already answered that above, Erik. In fact, I believe you said you agreed with me that there is no entailment from physicalism to the brain reading biz.

  37. GlenDavidson: Like ID, they don’t seem to bother with discovery or “coming up with” anything. They assert.

    I think both may be handicapped by the same prejudices: they love Truth but have no use for facts.

    sean s.

  38. sean samis: Maybe I missed it, Erik, but when did you show they were inseparable?

    I demonstrated it by showing that Patrick cannot separate them. If you are a mind-brain identity theorist who thinks his theory doesn’t entail brain-reading, show how.

  39. Erik,

    Weird for you to ask this since you said you agreed that they’re separable yourself, earlier today. Who cares whether patrick can separate them?

  40. Oh, for christ’s sake.

    Erik: walto: We can’t even read off every physical property from those physical properties we know about. The question betrays a confusion between knowledge de dicto and knowledge de re.

    I know and I agree….

  41. Erik: I demonstrated it by showing that Patrick cannot separate them. If you are a mind-brain identity theorist who thinks his theory doesn’t entail brain-reading, show how.

    Can you forward the link? Please?

    sean s.

  42. Erik:
    walto,

    That’s an unambiguous rejection of mind-brain identity theory. Of course I agree with it.

    That’s seems an absurd claim to me–no doubt flowing from the commission of the same de dicto/de re confusion I mentioned above. Let’s see your demonstration.

  43. walto: Let’s see your demonstration.

    To be clear, demonstration of what?

    My stance is that mind-brain identity theory directly entails brain-reading. Patrick walked right into it.

    Your stance is what? Do you hold to mind-brain identity theory? Then state the thesis of mind-brain identity theory as you understand it. What do you want me to demonstrate?

  44. Erik: My stance is that mind-brain identity theory directly entails brain-reading. Patrick walked right into it.

    Your stance is what?

    My “stance” is that there is no such entailment–which, as I said, you seemed to (sensibly) agree with a couple of hours ago. Anyhow, as I’ve either misunderstood you or you’ve changed your mind on this quite recently, please demonstrate this alleged entailment.

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