Melissa is more likely to be attracted to Aristotle’s basic orientation and his view on the soul. Melissa’s mind set leans more towards the scientific thought process when it comes to life and death. Like Aristotle her beliefs are more of the here and now. Making due with the reality put in front of them. Even though Melissa’s thoughts and beliefs mostly come with facts she still has some belief that there is something beyond the body that makes Matthew who he is, Matthew. But with that belief she also thinks without brain function there is no Matthew to save. It is a body with no ability to think and live. So like Aristotle she does think that there is a soul that is a part of our bodies. But without the ability to think then you are not living. …show more content…
She has the belief that the soul is attached to the body. The soul needs the body to still have existence. The soul is not its own individual being. The soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body, and for this reason exists in a body, and in a body of such-and-such a kind (De Anima 414a20) Without the ability to think and use the brain our soul has no purpose. The soul is a part of us that helps the body become a working body. Something living. The functioning of the soul depends on the function of the brain. To validate the theory even further, Melissa comes to conclusion , even though Matthews body is still able to function on life support, the brain is not working anymore. Adding one more point to the theory to help Melissa with her decision of her …show more content…
If the body is still functioning, Matthew is still in some way still intact. Well at least his soul is in her mind. Even with his brain completely damaged she still holds on to that Matthew will still exist regardless of their decision. But putting the fate of his soul in their hands it’s too much for her. If I were Melinda, my only argument would be why would our souls only be attached to our bodies? Why would we be able to do all of these for just getting by in our reality? Why can’t her sister see that maybe this life is a passage or test for our souls. Another reason to be careful with the decisions that we make while we are here. The weakness in Aristotle’s theory is that there isn’t really any proof to the idea that the brain and the soul function together. We know something has an influence from inside us to go about our everyday lives. But we have not been able to comprehend for sure what that
Bruder and Kenneth (2014) wrote that Plato also had his own theory of souls. According to Plato’s Republic, the human soul consists of three different elements. One of these souls consists of raw appetites. This soul includes our basic desires for various pleasures, comforts, physical satisfaction, and bodily ease (Kerns, n.d). Another of Plato’s souls consists of drives, or anger and ambition (Bruder & Kenneth, 2014, p.288). Kerns (n.d) described this soul as being spirited, in this sense meaning to be with high-energy and power, or hot blooded. It gets angry when it perceives injustice, for example, being done. This is also the part if us that loves to face and overcome great challenges, as well as loves victory, winning, challenge, and honor.
“The function of the brain is to think. The function of the body, on the other hand, is to show movements” (Gordon B. and Katherine J.: p17 -19). It is for this reason that Elizabeth wonders then that if the body and the soul are independent, how comes that the soul can cause body movements? She trusted that the great philosopher of the time, Descartes, would have an explanation for the matter. The body-soul relationship was a concept that Elizabeth found impossible to comprehend.
Our mind and our body are undoubtedly separate from each other. A mind can survive without a body, and, likewise, a body is just house for the mind. In The Meditations, Descartes describes this concept in his dualist theory in the second of multiple Meditations. We can reach this conclusion by first understanding that the mind can survive any destruction of the body, and then realizing that you are identical to your mind and not your body. In other words, you are your thoughts and experiences – not your physical body. Finally, you cannot doubt your own existence, because the act of doubting is, itself, and act of thinking, and to think is to exist as a “thinking thing,” or Res Cogitans.
Why would a soul be in a mortal soul if it is not mortal itself, or is it? However, with Descartes he differs from nonduality, saying that mind and body are two different entities, mind-body dualism. An example of how the mind and body could possibly be two separate things. Neuroscientist Christof Koch observed how a split-brain patient’s hand broke out into an almost fight trying to tell Dr. Koch how many seizures she had recently experienced. Due to her split-brain, they were unable to communicate with each other (Chopra,2012). With this patient is evident that her body and mind seemed to not be in sync with each other, instead of the opposite but does that still mean that the body and mind couldn’t possibly be
The differences of mind and soul have intrigued mankind since the dawn of time, Rene Descartes, Thomas Nagel, and Plato have addressed the differences between mind and matter. Does the soul remain despite the demise of its material extension? Is the soul immaterial? Are bodies, but a mere extension of forms in the physical world? Descartes, Nagel, and Plato agree that the immaterial soul and the physical body are distinct entities.
In De Anima, Aristotle discusses the nature of all living things. His first definition of the soul, and essentially his thesis, is that the soul is the “the first actuality of a natural body that is potentially alive” (412a 27-28). However that is definition that requires a lot of expansion to really mean something.
... believes the soul is long-lived, and can outlive many bodies, but argues that this does not show that the soul is immortal. How do we know the soul suffers nothing when the body deteriorates and perishes over centuries? Socrates claims it is inconceivable to think of the soul as ever being anything but alive. The argument from Affinity states that anything invisible, immaterial will go on to be immortal. While there are good souls and bad souls, the soul itself, is one thing that remains imperishable.
Plato’s Republic introduces a multitude of important and interesting concepts, of topics ranging from music, to gender equality, to political regime. For this reason, many philosophers and scholars still look back to The Republic in spite of its age. Yet one part that stands out in particular is Plato’s discussion of the soul in the fourth book of the Republic. Not only is this section interesting, but it was also extremely important for all proceeding moral philosophy, as Plato’s definition has been used ever since as a standard since then. Plato’s confabulation on the soul contains three main portions: defining each of the three parts and explanation of their functions, description of the interaction of the parts, and then how the the parts and their interaction motivate action. This essay will investigate each segment, and seek to explain their importance.
It seems that there is one thing that most ancient Greeks can agree on, and that is the existence of the human soul. The obviousness of the soul’s existence could be related to the Latin word for soul, anima, which also means spirit, breath, and life. We also get the word animate from anima, something that is animated has the ability to move of its own accord. It follows from this that humans, being living things with the ability to move of their own accord, have souls. Though there is no disagreement about the existence of souls, the views of human souls vary. Homer, Heraclitus, Democritus, and Socrates all have different views of what the human soul is, what it does, and its level of importance.
...of the body, and no problem arises of how soul and body can be united into a substantial whole: ‘there is no need to investigate whether the soul and the body are one, any more than the wax and the shape, or in general the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter; for while “one” and “being” are said in many ways, the primary [sense] is actuality’ (De anima 2.1, 12B6–9).Many twentieth-century philosophers have been looking for just such a via media between materialism and dualism, at least for the case of the human mind; and much scholarly attention has gone into asking whether Aristotle’s view can be aligned with one of the modern alternatives, or whether it offers something preferable to any of the modern alternatives, or whether it is so bound up with a falsified Aristotelian science that it must regretfully be dismissed as no longer a live option.
Throughout the evolution of philosophic thought, there have been many different views on the relationship of mind and body. The great philosopher Plato and the Neoplatonists held the belief that man's body is merely a prison of his soul, but St. Augustine later refutes this with his idea of the disembodied soul. He distinguishes between the concept of the physical form and the spiritual soul, and he argues that humankind can be redeemed because of the God spirit contained in the intellectual soul. This intellectual soul is not an inseparable part of the body, as St. Thomas Aquinas postulates. Instead, this soul is indeed the higher part of man, the state and well-being of man depends upon its stability.
...ence of the cognitive feature of the animal. For Aristotle the body and soul are not two separate elements, but they are of one thing. A body and a soul make a person. If a person has no soul, then that person is dead and it would only be a person by name. A thing that has a soul and is complete must be able to move and change. The soul dies with the body, and without the soul, the person is no more a person, but another inanimate object. One cannot exist without the other. With this concept of one not existing without the other, Aristotle leaves no room for there to be a possibility of immortality. Aristotle’s ideas of the soul and the body really formulate and combine both psychology and biology together, even though today many of his ideas have been proven wrong, for his time, they were very advanced with the research and materials that he was able to come by.
The soul can be defined as a perennial enigma that one may never understand. But many people rose to the challenge of effectively explaining just what the soul is about, along with outlining its desires. Three of these people are Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. Even though all three had distinctive views, the similarities between their views are strikingly vivid. The soul indeed is an enigma to mankind and the only rational explanation of its being is yet to come and may never arrive.
body, the mind and the soul. The body is the physical part of the body
Aristotle argued and disagreed with Plato’s views of the self and soul being a separate from the body. Aristotle’s view is that all humans have a soul, yet they cannot be separate from the body in which they reside. To him, there are four sections of the soul; the desiderative and vegetative parts on the irrational side are used to help one find what they are needing and the calculative and scientific parts on the rational side are