The question of
the reality of the soul and its distinction from the body is among the most
important problems of philosophy, for with it is bound up the doctrine of a
future life. The soul may be defined as
the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and will, and by which
our bodies are animated. The term
"mind" usually denotes this principle as the subject of our conscious
states, while "soul" denotes the source of our vegetative activities
as well. If there is life after death,
the agent of our vital activities must be capable of an existence separate from
the body. The belief in an active
principle in some sense distinct from the body is inference from the observed
facts
of life. The lowest savages arrive
at the concept of the soul almost without reflection, certainly without any
severe mental effort. The mysteries of
birth and death, the lapse of conscious life during sleep, even the most common
operations of imagination and memory, which abstract a man from his bodily
presence even while awake; all such facts suggest the existence of something
besides the visible organism. An existence not entirely defined by the material
and to a large extent independent of it, leading a life of its own. In the psychology of the savage, the soul is
often represented as actually migrating to and fro during dreams and trances,
and after death haunting the neighborhood of its body. Nearly always it is figured as something
extremely volatile, a perfume or a breath.
In Greece, the
heartland of our ancient philosophers, the first essays of philosophy took a
positive and somewhat materialistic direction, inherited from the
pre-philosophic age, from Homer and the early Greek religion. In Homer, while the distinction of soul and
body is recognized, the soul is hardly conceived as possessing a substantial
existence of its own. Severed from the body, it is a mere shadow, incapable of
energetic life. Other philosophers
described the soul's nature in terms of substance. Anaximander gives it an aeriform constitution,
Heraclitus describes it as a fire. The
fundamental thought is the same. The
soul is the nourishing agent which imparts heat, life, sense, and intelligence
to all things in their several degrees and kinds. The Pythagoreans taught that the soul is a
harmony, its essence consisting in those perfect mathematical ratios which are
the law of the universe and the music of the heavenly spheres. All these early theories were cosmological
rather than psychological in character.
Theology, physics, and mental science were not as yet distinguished.
In the "Timaeus" (p. 30), one of
Plato's writings, we find an account derived from Pythagorean sources of the
origin of the soul. First the world-soul
is created according to the laws of mathematical symmetry and musical
harmony. It is composed of two elements,
one an element of "sameness", corresponding to the universal and
intelligible order of truth, and the other an element of distinction or
"otherness", corresponding to the world of sensible and particular
existences. The individual human soul is
constructed on the same plan.
The Stoics taught
that all existence is material, and described the soul as "a breath
pervading the body". They also
called it Divine, a particle of God; it was composed of the most refined and
ethereal matter. They denied absolute immortality; relative immortality, ending
with the universal conflagration and destruction of all things, some of them
admitted in the case of the wise man.
Yet many others, such as Panaetius and Posidonius, denied even this,
arguing that, as "the soul began with the body, so it must end with
it".
With Socrates came a revolution in all
manners of thought. As, perhaps, the
most influential of philosophers, and also one of the best known, it is truly
unfortunate he left the future so little of his theories. Only through the writings of his students
have we any idea of his philosophy. In
the writing of Plato much thought is given to the concept of the human
soul. Socrates presents the soul having
three major ideas associated with it.
The human soul is immortal, immaterial, and moral. The question of immortality was a principal
subject of Plato's speculations. In the
"Phaedo" the chief argument for the immortality of the soul is based
on the nature of intellectual knowledge interpreted on the theory of
reminiscence of past lives; this implies the pre-existence of the soul, and
logically derives its eternal pre-existence.
The human soul is eternal, existing with neither beginning nor end.
With Socrates,
the individual aspects of the soul became dominant. It's individuality and its strict separation
with the body. In dominant thought
prior to the introduction of Socratic ideas, the human soul was naught but a
small part of a great world-soul; a soul that included the souls of every
creature and every object upon the earth and in the universe. In this scenario the actions of a human were
of no consequence directly to the soul.
There could be no concept of morality having any impact on personal life
beyond the immediate. To Socrates the
soul is the center of all human morality, the embodiment of "the
good" in the human consciousness.
Rather than just proceeding to rejoin the world-soul the individual soul
must pay reparation for life on earth. A
human that lives immorally, with disregard to the good will impact the future
of his soul. In Greek philosophy the
souls that are damned live for eternity in a place of torture and torment. The individual soul gives humans motive for
leading lives that are good and just. In
Socrates own words "It is better to suffer injustice than to serve
injustice." The care of the soul
becomes dominant over the body. Care for
the immortal aspects of the human and rewarding life after death will follow.
Socrates ties an abstract set of values to the
existence of the soul. To lead a life
that is good and just is to seek throughout ones life the ultimate
understanding; to fully recognize the good in the universe and to understand
its place. Without the realization of
this good we are unable to fully comprehend any form of existence. I originally found fault with this assessment
of life and the soul as a result of the seemingly complex and abstract values
that a soul must live by. Upon further
reflection the ultimate purpose of the soul is to seek understanding. Though abstract in nature, this goal is one
that can be applied to every individual regardless of culture, creed or
religion. Though I first considered this
one of the week points in the Socratic theory in truth its universality, is one
of its strengths.
Socrates' introduction of the individual soul
includes an aspect of motive to the nature of existence. With this new found individuality a soul must
worry about its existence, if it acted properly it would ascend to the Greek
concept of eternal bliss. In my own
unworthy opinion, to act with personal benefit in mind is to act selfishly and
therefore immorally. I concede to
Socrates that a truly selfless act is impossible, for as humans we always have
an ulterior motive behind the closed door of our direct consciousness. Why should it be different for the eternal
existence of our soul? Though we may
always have goals to work towards, basing ones life on the condition of
afterlife is self defeating. Life must
be lived from day to day with actions that further ones own immediate goals,
whether they are to bring joy to others or to live quietly in peace. To have the thought of eternal salvation
looming overhead is to live life with a bit in your mouth. Actions in accord with the good will be
committed for that reason; because they are good and just, not in hope of a
better afterlife.
Socratic thought has played such a dominant
role in our thinking that it is all but useless to imagine a world without the
benefit of his wisdom and understanding.
his influence can be felt throughout all aspects of thought, for he
covered them on such a universal level that they extend even to our own time. His concept of the soul revolutionized
Western concepts and gave the necessary basis for his students to carry
on. In the convoluted mess of differing
ideas on the soul, Socrates' is the most universal, the most encompassing and
the most realistic.
No comments:
Post a Comment