11
I would think the modern version of the argument is the Aristotelian version of the argument.
Looking at your question, your first point seems to narrow the definition of soul in a way that is not necessary. There's no requirement in the definition of soul that it be untied to body/brain in its operation. What matters is that it would be distinct. That ...
9
SOCRATES VERSUS BUDDHA ON THE SOUL
If Buddhism denies the existence of any continuing self or soul, this appears to conflict with Socrates' view of a continuing soul which is freed and released from the regions of the earth as from a prison. The soul continues to exist, Socrates says, but in radically different conditions. For Buddhism there is no soul to ...
5
There seem to be several questions packed into this post. From the philosophy of mind point of view, please refer to the extensive literature on Dualism vs Materialism. Musolino isn't the first to delve into this question. Note that I am conflating the position that souls exist with substance dualism, even though strictly speaking they are not the same.
...
4
What seems to be omitted is that Aristotle was a realist about forms. He does call them secondary substances whose existence depends on the existence of primary substances (particulars, e.g. material things), but he does say that both exist in re, see Aristotle's Theory of Abstraction by Bäck, Ch.2. Furthermore, the "structure" is not a mere epiphenomenon of ...
3
The affinity argument of Socrates is to support the immortality thesis of the soul. The argument is achieved by an analogical reasoning. The world of the Form and the soul share similar characteristics. The world of the Form is divine, intelligible, non-composite, unchanging and immortal. The soul is also divine, intelligible, non-composite and unchanging. ...
3
Pretty much every part of your body is continually changing at a molecular level. So physically after a certain number of years you are literally not the person you were before. Though manifestly you remain the same self.
Suppose that our consciousness at some time were reducible to electrobiological material in our body
Given your suppositions - then ...
2
Short Answer: These philosophies claim we all want this, we just don't know it.
Long Answer:
Religions and philosophies that espouse this say that this is the greatest bliss of all and those who say they don't want unity only say that because they don't realize what unity is like; if they did, they'd want it. In fact, part of the path of purification is ...
2
The passage in question is Plato: Phaedo 77,e8-9.
The Greek text speaks about ἐπᾴδειν, which means to exorcize by singing. The Greek sentence has no explicit subject, it says one has to exorcize. The translator has added the voice of the charmer.
2
I'm far from an expert in Buddhism, but here's my stab. It seems that like much between Buddhism and Christianity, there is certainly overlap between with respect to Annica and Anatta and the Christian concept of matter and souls, but there is also disagreement.
The idea of impermanence is largely shared by most Christian traditions and Buddhism, although ...
2
Secularism, at least in my reading is a neutral point between competing interpretations of Christianity. Its historically located in Europe and arose after the wars of Religion in the 16th Century. In this reading its not a positive force - that its doesn't promulgate positive doctrines on belief, but attitudes towards toleration.
There is also another ...
2
Derek Parfit (of Reasons and Persons fame) lists the definition of the self that is implicit in your scenario as only one of many alternative views that are held also by experts in the field:
The main debates have all been about the question whether it will
still be me who will exist for example at some point in the future
[…] There are many different ...
2
Guill's answer is pretty silly.
Just because humans are similar in terms of body does not make them similar in terms of the philosophical attributes we concern ourselves with her.
By the very nature of the existence of such philosophical attributes, they are distinct from bodily matters, and therefore correlation between bodily matters does not necessarily ...
2
Yes, they do.
There are plenty of examples where cats or dogs suffered after a human's death even if another human provided them with the same food and environment.
Cats wouldn't feel bad about knocking over an object, but they will know they did wrong if you caught them getting food from the table or actually doing something they're not suppose to. As far ...
2
It is difficult to exactly map ancient concepts to modern ones. On the one hand, this means that what Aristotle means when he says "soul" (or rather, what is generally translated as "soul") is not what we think of when we say "soul" --people have suggested that "vital principle" or "life force" is a better translation. (It's also possible that it is closer ...
2
Recent books from a Western philosophy perspective on the topic include JJ Valberg's Dream, Death, and the Self and Caspar Hare's On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects.
2
"He demonstrates how the properties of self-referential systems, demonstrated most famously in Gödel's incompleteness theorems, can be used to describe the unique properties of minds." — (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop)
I recommend I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop)
(http://tal....
2
The simplest answer to this question is to remember that correlation does not equal causation. Neural correlates are exactly that: biological phenomena that correlate with subjective experiences of consciousness. We have no clear idea (yet) what produces (causes) the subjective experience of consciousness, and so we have no theory on which to base a ...
1
Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce start the first chapter of their book, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals with these words:
Let's get right to the point. In Wild Justice, we argue that animals
feel empathy for each other, treat one another fairly, cooperate
towards common goals, and help each other out of trouble. We argue, in
short, that ...
1
Plato's views diverge strongly from Buddhist ones. For Buddhists there is reBirth, of causes and conditions created by craving and ignorance of the true nature of reality. This is contrasted to reIncarnation in Hinduism, of an immortal soul. This is a core fundamental distinction that anyone who 'gets' Buddhism, read texts or studied with a teacher, would ...
1
The basis rests on at least two factors: 1) accumulated knowledge and 2) observation.
Through accumulated knowledge, it has been determined that our chromosomes (humans) are 99.9% the same.
Though observation, we see that we have two hands, two feet, two eyes, one heart, etc., etc,.
The conclusion that humans are very similar (at least physically), is ...
1
I'd say:
The inductive argument Mauro suggests and attributes to Wittgenstein. (It can probably be dated further back). The behavior of these other humans is similar to what we can imagine.
a belief in kinds, categories or rules of the universe. Starting with the classic models in the West and East we have morphe/Form or xing 性 for a type of thing. Or if ...
1
▻ TRIPARTITE SOUL
1 The just soul is tripartite : this you already know. The three parts (mere) are reason (to logistikon) by which we learn, know, calculate, the spirited part (to thumos) which is the emotional part and in particular the seat of anger and indignation and motivates self-defence, and the appetitive part (to epithumetikon) to which a ...
1
For Plato, all the higher virtues stem from letting the better part of your nature rule the worse part. So the just person --as is true for the wise person or the good person-- must have reason ruling over appetite and spirit. The idea that there should be some fairness or equality between the parts of the soul isn't really a Platonic idea.
The only ...
1
This is answered in the literature of wisdom traditions (correctly or not). We would remain conscious during sleep and anasthethia but this would be a level of consciousness undetected by most of us the content of which is not remembered afterwards.
Meditators explore these levels of consciousness and part of the task is to become accustomed to ...
1
From the first person perspective, having survived a near death and a long surgery under anesthesia, for me it was just like time travel. The lights faded out then came right back on another place and time. I imagine death would be the same sort of thing. It would just fade out then immediately come back on somewhere else maybe, somewhere in the past or ...
1
We don't know what Socrates would have said about modern evolutionary theory because he makes no real mention of about any form of evolution; it's not outside the bounds of possibility that he had made remarks on evolution but they simply weren't recorded in the dialogues by Plato (which accounts for much of what we know about Socrates philosophy) since ...
1
"in their numerical self-identity"
"existence in the same species"
The original Latin of these two phrases is "secundum idem numero" (lit. "according to the same number," i.e., "to be numerically one" or individual/particular) and "secundum idem specie" (lit. "according to the same species"), respectively. For example, Socrates and Plato are not ...
1
Soul, in at least one sense is for Aristotle a principle of change.
To start at the beginning: Lets takes some entity, now it can be made to change into two mutually exclusive ways; either it can be made to change by the action of another, or by itself - this is a straight-forward, logical distinction.
It's the second sense that is used in soul; it changes ...
1
I am not sure that "soul" is very well defined across cultures. But it seems to me that, as James Kingsbery observes, interpretations of Christianity could fit your query, as might modern folk psychology.
The soul in much Christian and Neoplatonist doctrine is "simple substance" in that it is continuous and indivisible. Yet outside of Calvinist ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
