In the famous painting The School of Athens by the renaissance artist Raphael; Plato and Aristotle take centre stage with Plato pointing his finger up to high ideals and Aristotle facing his palm down to more worldly ideas. This difference is no more apparent that on their ideas about soul. In this essay I hope to highlight the difference between Plato’s spiritual view of the world and Aristotle’s material view of the world. Where Plato got his ideas we can’t be sure, although it seems he had little ideas of his own, he only ever quoted someone else. Aristotle got many of his ideas from Democritus; a philosopher who believed all was: matter, motion and void. (Wikipedia) As such Democritus is much like the modern scientist. Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, believed there was a world of immortal forms, where there was a perfect and immortal cup from witch all cups are formed. The fact we have an immortal soul means we are able access these immortal forms. Aristotle seeks to find a middle ground between Plato and Democritus. All living things have a soul, even trees, it is something aside from being alive, but something that passes with the death of the body. For Plato it is a different story, the soul comes from the stars and has fallen into the material world of bodies. The soul is reincarnated in line with justice as to how it has led is life. A philosopher will always be reincarnated as a philosopher, a coward may be reincarnated as a woman, an immoral woman may be reincarnated as an animal.
In Timaeus much emphasis is given to describing the soul in terms of numbers. The subject of the book was a Pythagorean who gave mystical values to numbers. Plato’s Academy lent a great deal from the Pythagoreans in this respect. Aristotle may have dabbled in number theory in his youth but in De Anima he has abandoned this for a more material theory. (Aristotle pg131)
It is a hallmark of western philosophy to divide things up into their component parts. In the Bible there are references to soul, spirit, mind and heart; it has become popular in churches lately to strictly define the difference between soul and spirit with some odd results. I don’t think this was the intention of the original authors who had a more wholistic view of things. Dividing and defining are great ways to do natural science but maybe not such a great way to explore the human condition.
Plato and Aristotle divide the soul up in all sorts of ways. Timaeus divides the immortal soul, that resides in the head and is left undivided (and given little comment), from the mortal soul that resides in the body and is divided to different parts of the body. In The Republic Socrates divides the soul into three parts: mind, spirit and appetite.1 Mind is the highest of these as it can tame the other two, but it is also the hardest to master. While spirit and appetite need only astatine what is good to find their way, mind must understand what is good and workout how to apply that to a specific situation. The appetite on the other hand is what is most likely to lead a man astray, for a spiritually minded philosopher such as Plato it might even be seen as sinful. (123 Help Me)
For Aristotle the soul is different from the body but inseparable. Plato sees the soul as something immortal that resides in the body for a while and continues on after the body has passed away. For Aristotle the soul is inextricably tied to the body and passes when the body does.
Like Plato; Aristotle divides the soul up into types: the nutritive, the sensible and the rational. (123 Help Me) The nutritive is definitive of a soul; if a thing takes in nutrition, grows and decays then it has a soul. The sensible is common to all animals, even if only a sense of touch and taste, all animals have some kind of sense, this along with voluntary movement is what sets animals apart from plants. The rational soul is unique to humans; it is what allows us to think. The rational soul is then divided into two kinds: the passive which simply learns from experience and the active that can deal with abstract concepts, imagine things that have not been experienced and philosophise. (123 Help Me)
Plato and Aristotle’s idea of souls is quite different from what I tend to think of when this word is bought up. My ideas about soul are hugely influenced by Christian theology. The word soul is used 302 times in the NIV Bible; but at no time is there any kind of detailed description of what a soul is. The words spirit, heart and mind are also used; but again there is no definitive explanation of what these words mean. The Greeks had a different way of thinking about things than the Jews. The Greeks liked things detailed, logical and scientific, while the Jews were more wholistic and liked to get into the spirit of things. My view of soul is influenced by these two schools of thought, a sort of hybrid that has evolved over the past couple of millennia
I find my self quick to reject Aristotle’s view of the soul, what he is describing is what I would call life. Plato is closer to my view of the soul although his scientific approach to a spiritual matter yields some odd results. I see the soul as something that is born with the body. It is not really located in particular part of the body, rather it is kind of ethereal and untangle. After the body dies the soul goes on to a place in eternity decided by God according to His justice and His grace.
This is probably what most people think of when the word soul is used. Even an atheist, who believes all we have is conciseness and it is a product of a biological function that ceases at death, will attribute other people’s idea about soul to what I just described. However this is not quite what the Bible describes; rather it is an idea that has come about over time from the merging of Jewish and Gentile ideas. When the Israelites take to Ball worship; they are not threatened with an eternity of torment in hell, they are threatened with an imminent invasion by a malevolent foreign power.2 Judgement is closely associated with our modern idea of soul and is a major theme of the Bible, the word appears 244 times in the NIV Bible. It is because we have a soul that we need to fear judgement and seek the unmerited favour offered by Christ.
Psyche in Ancient Greek is often translated as either soul or spirit, it is the root word from which we get psychology, psychiatric and psychotic; which deal with respectively the science, medical treatment of and an example of a disease of the mind. In recent times there has been a huge breakout of psychiatric conditions and addictions with that an increasing demand for counselling and the meteoric rise of The Twelve Step Programs. Along with this in the last half century or so there have been some astounding breakthroughs in medications to treat these conditions, leading to the closure of most of the asylums that were previously bleak fate of those that deal with psychiatric disorders. Along with this has been the rise of sectarianism, not just as a popular system of belief, but as a standard expected of health care professionals.
To the psychiatrist; he is a doctor with similar qualifications to your GP. His job is to make a diagnosis and prescribe suitable medication. He takes a very Aristotelian approach to his work. A new psychiatric patient is likely to ask “why is this happening to me, what caused this?” The psychiatrists response to this is “it’s just a chemical imbalance in the brain, it happens sometimes.” The psychiatrists task now is to ascertain which medication would be best suited to counteracting the chemical imbalance. This is made tricky by the fact that it is not possible to test brain chemistry without removing and dissecting the brain, psychiatric treatment is mostly supposition. The doctor asks the patient how they are feeling, hazards a guess as to what the condition is and what to treat it with. A week later the patient returns and the doctor asks if he is feeling any better. Modern psychology tries to be scientific, but it is hardly an exact science.
To the psychologist and counsellor; these are a pretty mixed bunch and have a broad range of often bizarre therapeutic models. For the most part they are sectarian and try to be as scientific as possible. But it is hardly precision science to have a patient keep a daily diary scoring from one to ten how depressed, anxious or happy they feel. There is sufficient demand for counsellors that can take a spiritual approach to their therapy that there is a school here at CHC dedicated to producing such counsellors. The reason for this is that it has been found that spiritual pursuits are effective. People with psychiatric conditions report feeling better for engaging in spiritual activities.
To The Twelve Step Programs; In 1935 Bill Wilson was lying in bed on the brink of death from his alcoholic condition when he saw a light and became convinced he was going to get him self sober by finding other alcoholics and helping them to get sober. He had been attending an Oxford Group; these were a kind of Christian home group that had slogans, a six step program and they would stand up and share on where they were in their Christian walk.3 The Twelve Step Programs are the fastest growing spiritual movement in the world today and one of the most outstanding events of the twentieth century. Over the last eighty odd years attempts have been made to make the program work without God; they invariably fail. It is usually a very watered down version of the Christian God but it is a God that could just as easily be Hindu, Muslim, New Age, group of drunks, whatever. It is an unusual and very modern approach to spirituality and it is understandable that some Christians may be suspicious of it. But it is undeniable that they are spiritual programs dealing with ailments of the soul. I don’t think at any point do The Step Programs try to be scientific.
So am I an Aristotelian or a Platonist? Aristotle’s scientific approach is very useful for discovering natural laws, developing new technologies and producing useful medications, but this approach has its limits. In dealing with matters of the soul Plato’s spiritual approach needs to be considered in order to get the full picture. The more wholistic approach of the Bible can be invaluable in perusing that spiritual approach.
Bibliography
123 help me, Plato’s Theory of The Soul in The Republic, 31 May 2018, https://members.123helpme.com/document/254321
123 help me, Aristotle’s Theory of the Soul in the De Anima, 31 May 2018, https://members.123helpme.com/document/353848
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc, Alcoholics Anonymous Fourth Edition, AA World Services Inc, 1976
Aristotle, De Anima, Camberwell, Penguin Books, 1986
Baring The Aegis, The Three Types of Souls Aristotle, 31 May 2018, http://baringtheaegis.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/the-three-types-of-souls-of-aristotle.html
Plato, The Republic, Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1955
Plato, Timaeus , Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 2000
Wikipedia, Democritus, 31 May 2018, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus
Biblica, New International Version Bible, Zondervan, 1973
1 In chapter four of The Republic Plato gives an account of the structure of the soul and relates this to the structure of society.
2 The book of Hosea poetically alludes to the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom as a consequence of idolatry and sexual immorality associated with Ball worship.
3 Some details of this story can be found in the Doctor’s Opinion and Bill’s Story; the opening chapters to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Clown Artist Philosopher 