Modern Philosophers on the Soul

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Are there any philosophers in the last 100 years who have written on the soul? I’m reading descartes and Aquinas but want to know if any philosophers have expounded theories of the soul without becoming empirisist or discuss theory of mind.
 
jmisk said:
Are there any philosophers in the last 100 years who have written on the soul? I’m reading descartes and Aquinas but want to know if any philosophers have expounded theories of the soul without becoming empirisist or discuss theory of mind.
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Haven’t heard of any that would agree with Catholic teaching. Most modern philosophers, who are not Catholic, argue against the existence of a spiritual, intellectual soul which is the form of the body and immortal. Many Catholic philosophers have discussed the human soul but, as far as I know, they all follow the teaching of Aquinas. No one follows Descartes these days, at least no Catholic.

God Bless
Linus2nd
 
So the best theology the Catholic Church has ended in the 13th century? Age doesn’t disprove the validity of an argument or theory, I would have hoped that other Catholic Philosophers would have taken up the challenge to expound or argue points of Thomas’s theory on the Soul.
 
Edward Feser is another.

I’m a newb at philosophy so these are the only two Thomistic philosophers of mind I’ve come across.
 
jmisk said:
So the best theology the Catholic Church has ended in the 13th century? Age doesn’t disprove the validity of an argument or theory, I would have hoped that other Catholic Philosophers would have taken up the challenge to expound or argue points of Thomas’s theory on the Soul.
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I agree, I would like to see more who come to terms with Thomas - For me, I see my own soul accurately depicted in the Summa of Thomas - the value of a philosophy is if it accurately describes what any person reading it can experience within and around himself.
The term “soul” was problematic for me before I read Thomas, and now I am fully at home with my own soul, my will, my intellect, and with my thoughts, words, deeds of my body being animated from my soul.

In my own way, but for the common man, I am trying to do some of that with my website ( softvocation.org/2013/12/27/the-trinity/ ) - difficult to find time, but I wish all could have access to him.
 
jmisk said:
Are there any philosophers in the last 100 years who have written on the soul? I’m reading descartes and Aquinas but want to know if any philosophers have expounded theories of the soul without becoming empirisist or discuss theory of mind.
Click to expand...
Dr. Edward Feser has written a short essay on the human soul in the Oct. 14 edition of " Strange Notions. strangenotions.com/ . Of course it is not a complete treatise but it will give you an idea of the Thomistic view.

BTW, you should understand that the reason why modern Catholic philosophers like Feser follow St. Thomas and Aristotle is precisely because the Thomistic view is correct and reflects the Church’s teachings. His book Philosophy of Mind gives competing views as well, but I didn’t find it all together satisfactory. Perhaps I was looking for something different.

God Bless
Linus2nd
 
jmisk said:
Are there any philosophers in the last 100 years who have written on the soul? I’m reading descartes and Aquinas but want to know if any philosophers have expounded theories of the soul without becoming empirisist or discuss theory of mind.
Click to expand...
If I understand you rightly, you want to know if we can prove the existence of the soul from modern philosophy as opposed to Thomas Aquinas?

I think the reason this is not attempted by modern philosophers is that modern philosophers (with the exception of Catholic philosophers) have drifted away from the idea of God and any thing else theological.

The existence of the soul as a thing separate from the physical world (and therefore capable of surviving the death of the body) is best approached as an intuitive truth. Some truths are found intuitively, rather than demonstratively, such as mathematical axioms. God is best found intuitively, rather than by demonstration. Intuitive understanding is founded upon the fact that the mind is open to the understanding of a truth. If the mind is not receptive to the idea of a soul, it will deny the existence of the soul just because the soul is beyond physical demonstration.

All civilizations from the dawn of human history have been receptive not only to the existence of God(s), but also to the existence of the soul and many great civilizations have posited the existence of soul ongoing after death. When atheism emerges, it often seems to be an aberration of our intuitive self. Atheism is repulsive to all our sense of meaning and purpose. It reduces everything to atoms in motion. Is the sense of self merely a function of atoms in the brain? This is hardly demonstrable. Yet atheism presumes it to be so without proof. So atheism has to assert a kind of intuitive truth of its own. The end result is that you have to choose between (at least) two world views; one of which posits God and gives meaning to the world and to our lives); the other of which denies God and any purpose to the world or to our lives.

One has to intuitively pick one world view or the other and live with the consequences. 🤷
 
I think that soul =consciousness.
Consciousness creates meaning. Without it intellect (rationality) is mere meaningless symbols. See symbol grounding problem.
Google qualia and you will see that consciousness and soul are almost identical.
Qualia (consciousness ) is a very hot topic now. Eliminative materialism ( the belief that only matter exists) is now a very minority position. Dennet, Churchlands and a few others may take the absurd position that consciousness does not exist but they are out of the mainstream.
 
wittgenstein said:
I think that soul =consciousness.
Consciousness creates meaning. Without it intellect (rationality) is mere meaningless symbols. See symbol grounding problem.
Google qualia and you will see that consciousness and soul are almost identical.
Qualia (consciousness ) is a very hot topic now. Eliminative materialism ( the belief that only matter exists) is now a very minority position. Dennet, Churchlands and a few others may take the absurd position that consciousness does not exist but they are out of the mainstream.
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Ironically, qualia is probably just the tip of the iceberg of what eliminative materialists (EM) have difficulty explaining. If you take EM to its logical conclusion, it ends up defeating reason and intellect itself - the very tools they are using. So you have to add reason and intellect to qualia.

God bless,
Ut
 
wittgenstein said:
I think that soul =consciousness.
Consciousness creates meaning. Without it intellect (rationality) is mere meaningless symbols. See symbol grounding problem.
Google qualia and you will see that consciousness and soul are almost identical.
Qualia (consciousness ) is a very hot topic now. Eliminative materialism ( the belief that only matter exists) is now a very minority position. Dennet, Churchlands and a few others may take the absurd position that consciousness does not exist but they are out of the mainstream.
Click to expand...
I find it strange, then, if “soul = consciousness” that when I am thinking, or even writing this answer, that the words making these sentences are coming to my conscious thought and fingers already making sense, even though I don’t know what the next word will be. The very first run, they are forming accurate grammatical structure and meaning without consciously looking through a dictionary or an English grammar to articulate, nor without hours of sorting through memories of words and memories of grammar (I am writing a “new thing”, not a learned thing) But, if there is an intellect and a will that drives my consciousness, my consciousness as its vehicle of “materialization” of its knowing into material reality, and drives my fingers, then I can have both consciousness and a non-material (spiritual) intellect and will (soul).
If a person must maintain that his IS his consciousness, and cannot consceive of consciousness being a sort of mindless instrument of the soul, that description of where do my words and thoughts come from would be distasteful.
 
Would you say that a computer has a soul? It can do calculations better than we can. What sets humans apart is that we understand meaning. A computer only manipulates signifiers, it has no understanding ( which requires consciousness, google symbol grounding Wikipedia ) of any signified.
 
wittgenstein said:
I think that soul =consciousness.
Consciousness creates meaning.
Click to expand...
I’d prefer to say that consciousness discerns meaning, rather than creates it.

If the universe exists for a meaningful purpose, it would be **discerned **by consciousness, but that meaning or purpose would have to have been **created **by God.
 
I do agree that consciousness cannot calculate, it makes calculations meaningful.
  1. Cause always precedes effect.
  2. You cannot be conscious of a thought before you think it.
  3. Therefore consciousness cannot cause particular thoughts.
    God is within (Luke 17:21). Sin is identification with the computer made of meat (our brain).
    Galatians 2:20
    Consciousness is the “I AM”. Our existence is self-evident (Descartes ).
 
This is the opposite of egotism. Sin is based on pride,a rejection of the only reality (God) and identification with a mundane particular. To recognize God within is to become selfless,no-thing.
 
Meaning is not equivalent to purpose. For example, the meaning of “dog” is 4 legged mammal that barks (or something similar ). The purpose of a dog is not a 4 legged mammal that barks.
God can create purpose but not meaning. Meaning is an agreed upon convention relative to whoever is conscious of the signifiers. For example there is nothing absolute about the correspondence between the signifier (pattern of ink) “dog” and an actual dog. Any signifier will work, for example, perro (spanish) or even hujyse if I choose that as a signifier for an actual dog.
 
wittgenstein said:
I do agree that consciousness cannot calculate, it makes calculations meaningful.
  1. Cause always precedes effect.
  2. You cannot be conscious of a thought before you think it.
  3. Therefore consciousness cannot cause particular thoughts.
    God is within (Luke 17:21). Sin is identification with the computer made of meat (our brain).
    Galatians 2:20
    Consciousness is the “I AM”. Our existence is self-evident (Descartes ).
Click to expand...
  1. true
  2. true, since consciousness is thinking, yet there is something not conscious bringing out word after word, something “knowing” what words should be next, that is not conscious, and is termed “soul” and is defined as not-material by earlier than modern philosophers, making consciousness and thought an actualization of a non-material (spiritual) knower, as if consciousness were simply an instrument, a “drawing board” for materialization of an object in the knowing of the soul, and for use in learning by the soul.
  3. true
    But, Luke shows Jesus saying, “the Kingdom established by God is in your midst” (plural of you), and refers to himself (Jesus) the King, and the disciples (the citizens of the Kingdom) to the Pharisees asking when it would come, and Jesus telling them, "Here it is, in your midst; I am the King and these are my citizens. It will not come on the heels of a legion of angels so you can say, “here it comes”.
    Sin is not in the brain which is the body, but in the flesh, which is a mind set on the soul’s appetites toward satisfying physical stimulus. When Paul says “but Christ who lives in me” and that the “life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,” he is saying I am content to do without temporal good, whether physical or mental, but I do all now as unto Christ and his satisfaction.
Something not conscious puts a word in my consciousness, “I”. Then suddenly from somewhere into my consciousness comes another word, “AM”. And there is a simple sentence in my consciousness of “I AM”. As if a “being” wants those words materialized, actualized, verbally, physically manifested or made known.

No, even if my brain were damaged by carbon monoxide poisoning and could no longer have conscious thought, still, “I AM”, though “I cannot animate this deteriorated brain of mine to conscious actualization of my knowing that I AM, just as if my arm was cut off I would be frustrated in animating my body into actualizing my signature in material reality”
 
wittgenstein said:
Meaning is not equivalent to purpose. For example, the meaning of “dog” is 4 legged mammal that barks (or something similar ). The purpose of a dog is not a 4 legged mammal that barks.
God can create purpose but not meaning. Meaning is an agreed upon convention relative to whoever is conscious of the signifiers.
Click to expand...
I suspect that you are confusing “meaning” with “definition.”

In my dictionary the words **meaning **and **purpose **are practically synonymous.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
I suspect that you are confusing “meaning” with “definition.”

In my dictionary the words **meaning **and **purpose **are practically synonymous.
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mean•ing
noun \ˈmē-niŋ\
: the idea that is represented by a word, phrase, etc.
: the idea that a person wants to express by using words, signs, etc.
: the idea that is expressed in a work of writing, art, etc.
Full Definition of MEANING
1
a : the thing one intends to convey especially by language : PURPORT
b : the thing that is conveyed especially by language : IMPORT
2
: something meant or intended : AIM
3
: significant quality; especially : implication of a hidden or special significance
4
a : the logical connotation of a word or phrase
b : the logical denotation or extension of a word or phrase
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meaning
1pur•pose
noun \ˈpər-pəs\
: the reason why something is done or used : the aim or intention of something
: the feeling of being determined to do or achieve something
: the aim or goal of a person : what a person is trying to do, become, etc.
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purpose?show=0&t=1413832749
 
Something not conscious puts a word in my consciousness, “I”. Then suddenly from somewhere into my consciousness comes another word, “AM”. And there is a simple sentence in my consciousness of “I AM”. As if a “being” wants those words materialized, actualized, verbally, physically manifested or made known.
John Martin (post 17)
But signifiers * are meaningless without consciousness.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding
*
changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/signifier_signified.htm
 
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