Does each human/animal/plant have many souls?

[John_Martin]

You actually have ignored every answer to you, STT, but the answers people have given have been sufficient to protect the inexperienced from taking your words without critical thinking. The answers were never able to convince you.

 

[Richca]

I am familiar with his theory. He believe that a thing or a being is a substance, eg. horse, human, stone etc. Each being however is made of matter and form. He however didn’t believe in atoms. To me atom is also a thing therefore it is a substance. So to me (according to my notation) we have primary substance, which is indivisible, such as atom and secondary substance, which is divisible, such as horse each has its own form. So to me the correct theory consist of primary substance, secondary substance, matters and forms.

I think Aristotle didn’t believe in atoms or the atomic theory as it was presented by Democritus from which this theory originated. If I’m not mistaken, according to Democritus, the primary substrate or ‘element’ of existing things was his idea of indivisible bodies of matter which he called atoms. So what we have here is solely a material cause of things which is pretty much what the pre-Socratics postulated in one way or another except I believe Anaximander (this may not be the proper guy and I think my spelling is off) who posited ‘mind’ as a cause of things. It was Plato or possibly Socrates before him who made an advancement and distinguished sense from intellect and postulated the formal cause of things besides simply just a material cause of things. Aristotle was committed to both the formal and material cause of things so in this way he disagreed with Democritus along with other reasons. Aristotle did believe in elemental substances such as water, earth, fire, and air but these are composites of matter and form.

Now, the notion of atoms as primary substance and horse, for example, as a kind of secondary substance is in inverse order in a certain sense to the reality of things I believe. What this is saying is that a horse is primarily and substantially atoms and secondarily or accidentally a horse. Is the form of the parts the same thing as the form of the whole? The parts of a horse, for example, the head, neck, legs, hoofs, tail are not the horse, they are parts of the whole body of the horse. Similarly, the atoms are parts of the horses’ body. They are not in themselves the body of the horse just as my hand is not my body but a part of my body. The substance of a thing is that which ‘stands under’ whatever can be predicated of the thing. The atoms found in the body of a horse are predicated of the whole horse so they can’t be the substance in itself of the horse nor any of its other parts. The form of the whole stands under the parts. This form is called the substantial form of the horse, its horseness, and the principle why the matter of the horse is organized into the body of a horse. The substance of a thing answers the question ‘What is it’. We answer ‘a horse’.

 

[Richca]

I believe that there are a number of philosophical, metaphysical, and theological difficulties with your position here and I think plain observation. For example, if the life principle in living things is material, then what is it that distinguishes a living tiger say from a dead tiger? You have the same material in the body of a living tiger as there is in the corpse of a dead tiger.

I think I see what you are getting at here though in that we can take certain living cells from a living thing such as our own body and keep them alive artificially and separated from the body. We can do the same with blood and various organs of the body. Accordingly, if the soul is the animating principle of living things than how is this possible it may be asked. A few thoughts off the top of my head.
(1) These parts of the body are being kept alive artificially. They would naturally decompose otherwise.
(2) This does not prove to me that the soul is not the animating principle of the body of a living thing or that the animating principle of living things is material. Again, if the animating principle of living things is material than why aren’t all material things animated and living? The cases in point here does not authorize us to jump to various and rather shallow conclusions I believe. I don’t see how blood kept ‘alive’ in a blood bank proves that the soul is not the animating principle of the body. This seems to me a rash jump to judgement.
(3) Various cells, organs, and blood taken from the body and artificially kept alive can be called substances in a certain sense but not absolutely. For example, blood only exists naturally in the bodies of animals. It is not something that is found naturally existing by itself in nature and the same goes for the other things such as skin cells or various organs of the body. Accordingly, exactly what is the nature of the form of these things separate from the body is a sort of difficult question. Does blood kept in a blood bank have a substantial form or is this blood more like an aggregate of substances? I haven’t personally thought deeply about this question in terms of Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy and metaphysics. However, I have read some papers concerning this in the light of Thomistic metaphysics and St Thomas does mention the notion of ‘transitional forms’ on this topic which I believe is understood, though I could be mistaken, as a certain kind of transitional substantial form midway so to speak between the soul of the thing the part came from and before decomposition such as blood bleeding from the body.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

(4) Modern science is not concerned with the formal cause of things which cause is essential, substantial, and foundational for why things are what they are such as a dog or tree in Aristotlelian/Thomistic natural philosophical science and metaphysics. In this later science and according to hylemorphic theory, the only possible animating principle in living things is a form of some kind since matter is simply potentiality and not an active cause of anything. Actuality and action are forms since forms are acts.

 

[STT]

Now, the notion of atoms as primary substance and horse, for example, as a kind of secondary substance is in inverse order in a certain sense to the reality of things I believe.

Ok, let’s see.

What this is saying is that a horse is primarily and substantially atoms and secondarily or accidentally a horse.

I cannot follow you here. There are many and or.

Is the form of the parts the same thing as the form of the whole?

No. They are different.

The parts of a horse, for example, the head, neck, legs, hoofs, tail are not the horse, they are parts of the whole body of the horse. Similarly, the atoms are parts of the horses’ body. They are not in themselves the body of the horse just as my hand is not my body but a part of my body. The substance of a thing is that which ‘stands under’ whatever can be predicated of the thing. The atoms found in the body of a horse are predicated of the whole horse so they can’t be the substance in itself of the horse nor any of its other parts. The form of the whole stands under the parts. This form is called the substantial form of the horse, its horseness, and the principle why the matter of the horse is organized into the body of a horse. The substance of a thing answers the question ‘What is it’. We answer ‘a horse’.

Could there be an single atom? We can ask what is it? The answer is an atom.