What is a soul or a spirit?

the buddhist says we have no souls. Aristotle says that rational side of us is the soul, I think. Descartes the mind.
I was thinking if there was a hell, how can we be tortured or experience pleasure if our souls left our bodies? Unless souls have feelings or sensations?
But what is a soul ?

Well, I know something about Aristotle’s doctrine at least…

For him the soul is that which gives a body life. I understand this as that which leaves the body at death, leaving the body a lump of disassociating chemicals – because the soul is the substantial form of the body. He argues that the mind is separate from physical matter, so a rational soul may survive death: so man’s soul is a spirit.

Eastern Christian traditions speak of body, soul, and spirit; but I don’t know a good source for explaining this.

As for Cartesian dualism, that makes the soul and body co-existing things (a “ghost in the machine”?), connected possibly in some organ with no other use attributed to it. This seems to make a man a spirit controlling a body; while with Aristotle, man is a spirit united substantially with the body – and so with Aristotle death is a true tragedy.

As for the Buddhist view, I would defend the western view by suggesting that the Buddhist has looked around and seen parts of his experience that are and aren’t himself, but it is the see-er itself which is most centrally “I”.

Finally, I wonder about New Age religion. Is the soul or spirit the astral body? Are the bodily soul and the spirit which seeks connected the way Descartes said the body and soul were?

mrn,…surely no help at all

Soul is usually understood to be containing the individual parts of the being. Such as the psyche, whether it be developed from over many lifetimes or just this one. Actually, I cant remember the exact origin, but soul means psyche. The spirit on the other hand, refers to the sustainer of all souls. The breath of life that each and everyone has in common.

From Classical Greek. If i remember correctly, “psyche” means
both “mind” and “soul”. It’s a root word of “psychology”, of course.

Does that help to confuse the matter? :confused:

mrn

my real name wrote:

No actually, I think that pretty much clarifies it.

Hell cannot be experienced without sentience. Extreme torment is something with which even materialists can identify. Materialists deny the existence of a soul and of hell, but most of them affirm the existence of sentience and would deeply dread the prospect of extreme torment.

If a philosophy of naturalism is assumed, the question of identity of the subject of justice becomes complicated. A given person P could consist of a vast plurality of sub-persons. Suppose person P, as sub-person P1, experiences extreme pleasure whilst committing a heinous crime. Some time later, person P pays for the crime by being subject to extreme torment. However, it is not sub-person P1 that experiences the extreme torment, but it is sub-person P2. Sub-person P2 has memories of committing the heinous crime but is so consumed with torment that he is incapable of savouring any of that past experience. Therefore, justice is perverted as sub-person P2 must suffer for the crime committed by sub-person P1. Sub-person P1 exists only when person P is experiencing extreme pleasure and sub-person P2 exists only when person P is experiencing extreme torment. Memories of committing the crime may give sub-person P2 an illusion of receiving justice, but sub-person P2 is not receiving justice at all.

Now suppose Q is another person whose mind is filled with fantasies of committing the heinous crime that P committed but who never actually carries out the crime. Whenever Q is engaged in such phantasies, his Q1 sub-person is in effect. Sub-person Q1 is much more the person that sub-person P1 is than sub-person P2 is. Therefore, it would be much more just for Q1 to suffer the consequences of the crime than it is for sub-person P2 to suffer those consequences. However, Q1 can experience only extreme pleasure. If Q is subject to extreme torment, then it is not Q1 that suffers but Q2. Q2 would be too tormented to savour any criminal phantasies and would therefore be punished unjustly, just as P2 was.

In the biblical view of the personal spirit, identity of the person’s spirit is constant throughout the person’s life. There are no sub-persons in this view. The same person can experience extreme pleasure at one time and extreme torment at another time. Therefore, the justice that was impossible in the naturalistic view becomes possible in the biblical transcendent view. Sentient identity remains absolutely unaltered throughout the person’s life. This cannot be possible without a reality that transcends nature. In a naturalistic view, the sentient identity of a person could, theoretically, be transformed into the sentient identity of any other person through gradual modification. The transcendent person may be highly mutable in memory and behaviour, but is absolutely immutable in sentient identity.

Yes.

I neglected to mention: Cassical Greek also has a word, “nous”, which only means mind.
It was Plato’s nickname for his top student, Aristotle.

mrn

A beast entagled on re-occurring fate and lives.