The Frustrating Richard Swinburne

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I’ve ran into this guy in several different arenas philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and now metaphysics each and every time I was less then impressed.

I’m currently doing an outline on his article “Body and Soul,” and I’m seeing objections in almost every paragraph.

Fortunately, we can learn something from him, here are some tips on writing a good essay on the soul/body problem.

You must define these terms:

  1. Person
  2. Mind
  3. Body
  4. Soul

Do not define a soul as “that which exists after the body has been destroyed,” because that would be begging the question.

Do not define the body in such a way as to allow a stick I hold in my hand that I use to poke my cat be a part of my body.

Try not to equivocate on #3 (even though he never adaquately defines the other terms, otherwise he would have probably equivocated on those also).

Though I don’t believe in a soul, if you follow the above considerations you will insantly have an article that might be worth my time.

2

Troy,

  1. Person – the ideational identity set as it occurs within the realm of language and culture.
  2. Mind – the operational capacity of that identity set.
  3. Body – the material substrate upon which that identity set grounds itself and the primary vehicle by which it initiates its actuality.
  4. Soul – the coherence of the identity set as it survives and operates beyond the limits of its substrate.

Dunamis

3

I’ll take a shot.

  1. Person: Combination of body and mind inherent in one being and consisting of certain general characteristics which would exclude or seperate said combination from other beings.
  2. Mind: conscious engine of perception, thought, and action.
  3. Body: Physical entity in which the mind exists and through which the mind expresses itself.
  4. Soul: A higher state to which the mind may transcend through loss of the physical body.

Ah well.

4

Dunamis

Well it seems that your 2 and 3 have created your 4. The body is the mind - the identity set is not purely linguistic or cultural, it is carnal also, which is to say embodied. However one’s body is mediated to oneself through language and culture. But I am not sure that this makes all immediate - that is, without mediation - experience impossible. I am not however offering an argument on this.

I am saying though that without the body there is no ideational identity set, and no mind. The substrate does not ‘limit’ the identity set; it is the identity set. It cannot even be said to be the ‘vehicle’ for the identity set - it is immediate. Hence your definition of ‘soul’ is incoherent, although perhaps consistent with your other definitions.

You are too Cartesian, in my opinion. Have you noticed? You even have your own terminology! Awesome.

Seriously, though, I’m just amusing myself.

Gate Control Theory

Wow your even more Cartesian! Fantastic!

See above.

Regards,

James

5

James,

I of course was just amusing myself as well…a series of definitions come upon in impromptu fashion. Feel free to sketch your own.

“The substrate does not ‘limit’ the identity set; it is the identity set.”

Beethoven exists to this day, exerting ideational force, long after his decay. You may of course prepose that his “body” now is spatially dispersed in the neurons, books, pages, pen strokes and recordings, and not lying in its grave. I would not be adverse to that.

Dunamis

6

yeah, but that is typical for Tuesdays at the GCT household. Wednesdays, I am all about the Tat Tvam Asi

7

Ah Dunamis - slippery as usual. I think perhaps your non-conventional word usage makes it difficult for me to know precisely what I am arguing against.

I think the above argument is positionally too reliant on some ‘third person view’ to have much power. Also you have grounded the identity set in the body, but would like also to say that it continues without the body. What I am saying is that it does not continue for that particular body which you are.

So yes the identity set is ‘stretched’, but to say that Beethoven still exists on account of this seems confused. Your use of perspective to try and sell this kind of holistic or depositioned account of existence seems misconceived.

It is also what has lead to your definition of soul - at least as this would appear to be the case from this post. Hence my saying that your 2 and 3 led to your four.

I guess if I was going to make this Heideggerian I would ask you to remember what is ‘mineness’

Also, your definitions are not so impromptu as perhaps you want them to be. They are loaded.

James

8

James,

“I think perhaps your non-conventional word usage makes it difficult for me to know precisely what I am arguing against.”

The word-use ambiguities were actually built into the question. Body as it is conceived and presented implies to me the sociologically defined body, but the substrate that I mean philosophically is much broader, plastic and non-local, so I was forced in the brief space to attempt to marry the two.

“I think the above argument is positionally too reliant on some ‘third person view’ to have much power.”

I don’t see the third person here, unless you suppose the Lacanian Other which is presumed when there is any communication.

“Also you have grounded the identity set in the body, but would like also to say that it continues without the body.”

Yes, I pointed out above that this ambiguity was required by the form of the question and the brevity of my answer.

“What I am saying is that it does not continue for that particular body which you are.”

Yes, but that body “which you are” is a sociological construction. The which-you-are is an identification, but the actual substrate for what-you-are is actually diverse and non-local.

“So yes the identity set is ‘stretched’, but to say that Beethoven still exists on account of this seems confused.”

Is it me that is confused, or you? The “stretching” of Beethoven occurred before his death. The substrate that supports us extends far beyond the assignable sign of the body.

“Your use of perspective to try and sell this kind of holistic or depositioned account of existence seems misconceived.”

Is this a personal bias against certain conclusions, or is there some other point being made. I am selling nothing, but only telling what I see. You are free to tell what you see as well.

“It is also what has lead to your definition of soul - at least as this would appear to be the case from this post. Hence my saying that your 2 and 3 led to your four.”

I am unsure of the criticism here. You are saying that I have taken a particular position, and therefore came up with a particular definition. That seems a quite natural way to come up with definitions. Definitions should reflect one’s position.

“I guess if I was going to make this Heideggerian I would ask you to remember what is ‘mineness’”

The "mineness’ of Heidegger is an ideological subset of the privatizing of Being. Its authenticity rests on choice which for me is a constructed act. The constitutive Being of choice rather rests in its connection to transpersonal forces, which I believe that Heidegger hints at. Power, (and Being) is the capacity to be affected.

“Also, your definitions are not so impromptu as perhaps you want them to be. They are loaded.”

I don’t see how these are mutually exclusive terms. I sketched them practically as I wrote them. And these are loaded definitions for loaded terms.

Dunamis

9

Agreed.

Well I suppose I may have mistook your meaning. Do you think the ‘view from anywhere’ as opposed to the ‘view from somewhere’ is a coherant antithesis? When I die, my atoms and so forth will ‘reconfigure’. And we cannot say that it is the actual atoms which constitute me, as they change configuration. ‘Being’ then… what is that? A social construct perhaps? Does your dismissal of the third person mean also a dismissal of the first? But we use this term ‘first person’ - it is constitutive even if contingent. So if Beethoven loses this at death, then in what way does he persist?

So the soul can switch substrates as in if you were put ‘into’ a machine? Actually I had miscontrued your definition of soul, as it does not keep much of the conventional meaning, which for me carries connotations of the afterlife. The body is the ‘primary vehicle’, as you say, which I suppose leaves room open for ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ vehicles. Would you propose that death, for instance, is merely a switch between two of these vehicles?

Like I said I think we are arguing past each other.

I am not disagreeing with the first sentence. I think mixing ‘body’ with ‘substrate’ has distorted your message. So what then, is the ‘substrate’?

“Your use of perspective to try and sell this kind of holistic or depositioned account of existence seems misconceived.”

As you admit your post has blurred lines which should not really be blurred. It was my mistake to infer that this was due to misconception, but then I could not have been expected to know better, as I deal only with what is presented in the post.

Hence I say “least as this would appear to be the case from this post”

Your position is a collection of definitions. What I wrote was more an observation than a criticism, as it was the definitions themselves which I disagreed with. It seems though that your definitions do not reflect your actual position, as otherwise we would not be in this mess now.

Ok I did not mean for this much of the definition to be used. I guess my main question is as concerns your position on the ‘first person’.

Well yes I use ‘impromptu’ with a sense of being in possession of the meaning, whereas I use ‘loaded’ to mean that this meaning is not entirely your own, that you are not the author of it. It is almost inevitable in such a small post that the terms will be miscontrued in one way or another.

James

10

James,

“Do you think the ‘view from anywhere’ as opposed to the ‘view from somewhere’ is a coherant antithesis?”

Not if you mean by antithesis, mutually exclusive states. The view from somewhere implies a view-from-anywhere reality anytime communication is attempted. These two are involuted.

“So if Beethoven loses this at death, then in what way does he persist?”

In the first person Beethoven relates to many aspects of his “self”, much of which persists beyond his “death”. If a person is defined by his effects then Beethoven clearly continues to have effects. The privatization of reflexivity, that small loop, likes to award to itself the realities that extend far beyond it, but in truth these belong to substrates not only beyond that reflexivity, but beyond the (sociologically defined) body itself.

”So the soul can switch substrates as in if you were put ‘into’ a machine?”

The soul is constantly appropriating material and discarding material through its organizational capacities.

“Actually I had miscontrued your definition of soul, as it does not keep much of the conventional meaning, which for me carries connotations of the afterlife.”

I believe there are many kinds of persistances, some of which might be construed as “afterlife”. The very idea of karma as a series of material accretions which then could be animated allows for continuance and identity beyond a single life span. Whether we interpret this as a single identity that is preserved, or a genealogy of manifestations is a question of perspective.

“The body is the ‘primary vehicle’, as you say, which I suppose leaves room open for ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ vehicles.”

The body here is the material sociological body. (As I said the question itself creates ambiguities). The soul also exists within ideational “bodies” which perpetuate its effects.

“Would you propose that death, for instance, is merely a switch between two of these vehicles?”

Death is the end of certain capacities, but does not foreclose the continuation of other capacities. Because these other capacities were operative when “alive”, and some of which before when “alive”. I’m not sure that this is a switch, but I suppose you could describe it in that way.

”So what then, is the ‘substrate’?”

Material communication of effects. Because language presupposes many dualities there is always the danger of expressing a duality when one does not ontologically intend one. These are simply metaphors though. The material in my mind is not opposed to the immaterial. Organization is always material. The substrate refers to a mythological state of matter if you were to subtract its relations from its being, but since matter does not exist without relations, substrate does not exist, except as a conceptual tool.

”It seems though that your definitions do not reflect your actual position, as otherwise we would not be in this mess now.”

I believe they do reflect my positions. These were only spur of the moment sketches, not analytically honed propositions. Yet if I did hone propositions I’m sure that such propositions would also be loaded and contain multiple meanings.

Dunamis

11

Thanks for the reply. I think I will leave it at that for now, if you don’t mind.

Cheers

James