On the Immortality of the Soul

[Blue_Horizon]

Oh, yes. But I would not restrict myself to Porphery’s Tree because the ancients ( including Aristotle ) restricted substance to material being. St. Thomas did not do so, he used a modified " tree " based loosely on Aristotle. In Thomas’ view a substance is any being ( something which exists in any way ), material or spiritual, which existed in reality, which was not a " being of the intellect. "

So the soul and man compose one substance. The soul is not a separate substance in man, nor is the body a separate substance in man. When they are together there is only one substance, the human being, man’s matter and his substantial form. The soul however can exist without the body, which is what this arguement is all about. Alone one would have to say that the soul is an incomplete substance, a " fish out of water " so to speak, a modified substance, a substance lacking something it properly needs - its body. I think Thomas would describe it as a " deprived substance, " or something like that. ( you can look it up if you like, I’m going from memory.).

The soul however is a spiritual substance, not a material substance. And by " spiritual, " I mean a substance or being having no physical constitution of any type, however subtle it may be imagined - utterly simple, limited only by its act of existence.

Linus2nd

L2, you have evaded the black and white questions I asked.
What you write makes no sense until we clearly define the terms used.
You must know that the Scholastics adapted Porphery’s Tree to include Incorporeal Substance. (The issue is not what particular names any given age gives to the Tree’s branches, its just a means of defining terms at a global level.)

Your comments about Aristotle’s version are spurious and of no consequence.
Ditto for the link site where you went off on tangents.
Just face the question. You must know that Aquinas divided all being into either corporeal or incorporeal substances.

So allow me to repeat the tough questions for a 3rd time:

(1) Where on Porphery’s Tree (of 'Substance") do we place the substance that is “Man”?
(ie under “incorporeal substance” or under “corporeal substance”).
(2) Where on Porphery’s Tree (of 'Substance") do we place the substance that is “Soul?”
(ie under “incorporeal substance” or under “corporeal substance”).
(3) Is human death a “substantial change” or an “accidental change” wrt the substance Man?

If you cannot answer each of these questions in one short sentence then, as my boss puts it, “you don’t actually know”.

That’s fine. But if you are averse to answering these questions then we cannot continue our discussion because our terms will be too slippery and ambiguous.

BTW, “So the soul and man compose one substance” (I think you mean “soul and body” perhaps) sounds like philosophic self-contradictions to me, but we cannot analyse this until you answer the above questions.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Come on L2 this is plain pomposity and baseless assertion.
Part …

Sorry you think so. I’ve stated positions that are held by authorities which I happen to agree with. I wouldn’t dare pretend they are original with me. And I don’t know what " unchartered " territory you might have in mind.

Repeating Aquinas’s well known views…

Again, what are these more " ambiguous or improbable points? Ask away.

I want to here from your own personal reflections/reasoning, not quote from Feser or Aquinas that you may or may not actually understand or be able to defend.
Hiding behind’s mother’s skirts convinces noone.

I’m not hiding behind anyone. It is common practice to cite authority - especially when one agrees with it.

You come across more anxious to make sure everybody knows the traditional Catholic position of 800 yrs ago rather than engage/explore the difficulties that position raises in the light of modern science…

If science should announce that it has proven that the brain is the source of man’s ability to think, reason, judge, remember, and the seat of life and self-awareness, that would be contrary to Catholic Dogma and Magisterial Teaching and could not possibly be held as true since it would be tantamount to denying the existence of man’s spiritual soul, the form of the body. It would be heresy and I think all Catholics who may be following this discussion should be aware of it.

I’m quite open to new ideas, but I haven’t seen any here that I could agree with. Ah yes, I’m an old fuddy duddy.

That therefore logically …not worthy of a generous mind.

You seem to be full of ad hominems. And where does the tautology come in? I merely pointed out that there is a strong debate within the scientific/secular philosophical community on the points you raised. There is no strong agreement. And of course they disagree with Thomas. They have disagreed with him since the end of the 14th century.

I would appreciate you briefly stating what you believe my view to be.
From your responses thus far I do not think you have actually read it closely enough to know what it is.

I think you adhere to the teaching of the Church that the soul is the form of man, that it is the source of his rational nature, and the source of his life, that it is spiritual, and that it is immortal, but that you don’t realize the dangers toying with certain ideas floating around the secular universe.

Lets back-up the truck and look and what I actually said:
"I don’t see the problem. You seem to be saying that just because we say that all acts of the human soul require an organ in this life that man cannot be immortal.
It doesn’t logically follow. Sure, human immortality becomes less clear to human reason but that doesn’t prove Christian revelation wrong. Your difficulty reminds me of the saying “What is the difference between fact and fiction…well, only fiction has to make sense.” You seem to believe the opposite."

I agree that to actually function in this life the spiritual activity of the soul requires a physical organ. But these are spiritual acts, they are not the acts of the brain, they do not originate with the brain, they depend on the brain as a tool for expression, a tool of communication, if you will ( my own thought). That is the point. And this demonstrates or points to the immortality of the soul. The problem with some scientists today is that they are saying because man must have a brain that there cannot be a soul or a spiritual center to man. That is what I am disagreeing with.

May I repeat again…

My position is that the soul is the source of life in man, that it is his rational principle and that it performs a number of purely spiritual acts that originate with itself. And it expresses these acts through the brain and the nervous system. In fact the soul is man’s substantial form, the seat of his nature, the source of all motion and change in man. Man’s entire physiological, phycohlogical is under the rule of the soul.

My position is that this argument is no more than the most probable explanation at the moment and that probability has been steadily eroding since the discoveries of Science wrt brain function.

Fiddle sticks and phooy. I’m not up on the abbreviations, I have no idea what " wrt " means. And you are welcome to your unfounded opinions, I don’t think they are worth much.

If you believe your position…

Not worthy of comment…

After all the guy who invented the concepts of form/matter held your position wrt intellectual acts - yet he denied the immortality of the soul. He wasn’t stupid.

I’m ignorant of the fact, I haven’t read enough of Aristotle. However, Thomas broadend the application of his principles. Thomas saw things Aristotle didn’t see because of his Catholic Faith.

But if you do agree that Aquinas’s position is non-falsifiable …the power of his intellect (and perhaps Albert the Great) did make him a reluctant empiricist when the facts spoke for themselves. Aquinas would have looked into Galileos blurry telescope lenses even if he didn’t want to.

Slurrs of this type aren’t much of an argument. And by the way, as long as you are holding up Galileo as a hero, he had Aristotle all wrong. On top of that he was an arrogant arse. " Falsifiable " is a term restricted to hard science. Philosophy is not a hard science. Thomas’ argument and mine can be argued agains. In principle, they are not falsifiable.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

L2, you have evaded the black and white questions I asked.
What you write makes no sense until we clearly define the terms used.
You must know that the Scholastics adapted Porphery’s Tree to include Incorporeal Substance. (The issue is not what particular names any given age gives to the Tree’s branches, its just a means of defining terms at a global level.)

Your comments about Aristotle’s version are spurious and of no consequence.
Ditto for the link site where you went off on tangents.
Just face the question. You must know that Aquinas divided all being into either corporeal or incorporeal substances.

Thomas divided all being into corporeal, incorpreal, and the being who is a combination of each, man who is both corporeal and incorporeal, and beings of the mind. I prefer not to use Porphery’s Tree because it reflects neither Thomas’ nor Aristotle’s thinking. It is neoplatonist from the third century. So there is no reason why Thomas or Aristotle should be restricted by it.

So allow me to repeat the tough questions for a 3rd time:

As I said, I won’t be dragged into a debate on " Trees. "

I will simply say that Thomas ( his opinion is the only one I regard as pertinent ) divides being as I just mentioned. And of these substances were beings which actually existed, they were not beings of the mind, nor were they accidents existing alone. Accidents were not substances in Thomas’ thinking because they " existed in another. "

(1) Where on Porphery’s Tree (of 'Substance") do we place the substance that is “Man”?

He wouldn’t fig in properly on the Tree, that is why I won’t be pinned down to it. Man is a substance composed of both the corporeal and the incorporeal ( spiritual ).

(ie under “incorporeal substance” or under “corporeal substance”).{/QUOTE]

As I just pointed out, under neither.

quote Where on Porphery’s Tree (of 'Substance") do we place the substance that is "Soul?"ie under “incorporeal substance” or under “corporeal substance”).

You would have to place it under the incorporeal. But it has to be understood that the soul is the substantial form of the man, that man is a composit of matter and form ( soul ).

(3) Is human death a “substantial change” or an “accidental change” wrt the substance Man?

It would be a substantial change.

If you cannot answer each of these questions in one short sentence then, as my boss puts it, “you don’t actually know”.

Now look who’s getting dogmatic. I doubt whether your boss and I would get along very well.

BTW, “So the soul and man compose one substance”

(I think you mean “soul and body” perhaps) sounds like philosophic self-contradictions to me, but we cannot analyse this until you answer the above questions.

I don’t mind if you call man a substance as long as it is understood that man is a composit of the corporeal and the incorporeal or of the material and the spiritual, of matter and form. So you see, man does not fit nicely into either Aristotle’s or Porphery’s Tree. Man is a special case and I don’t think he has to be pigeonholed.

Now I wish to reiterate what I presented in my posts #s 207 and 208 where I stated the Church’s teaching in regard to the nature of man. Notice that " Trees " are not mentioned. Rather the Church speaks in realities which were created by God and can be understood without being pigeonholed into specific categories - as messy as it may appear.

Linus2nd
[/quote]

 

[Taurks]

To the OP:

Can it be demonstrated that the soul does indeed survive after death, and doesn’t cease to exist? Note: I am not interested in Theological Arguments, theologically the immortality of the Soul is a given via revelation- I am after a purely Philosophical argument. So if you need to quote scripture, and Church documents- you’re doing it wrong.

Also:

If the soul can be held to subsist after death, how is the soul individuated? For in the classical metaphysics it is matter which individuates the form/soul, how can the soul be individuated if it is not united to matter?

Socrates. The Phaedo dialogue (you have to scroll a bit). This should satisfy all of your criteria: purely philosophical, no scripture quotes. I don’t think I could summarize his arguments (it’s been almost a year since I read that one) but he talks about the soul at length, and all the various theories (e.g. the Pythagorean theory that the soul exists only when elements in the body are in balance, or that it might go through several lives but still eventually dies) which he shows not to be true.

Cebes voices his fear of death to Socrates: "…they fear that when she [the soul] has left the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may perish and come to an end immediately on her release from the body…dispersing and vanishing away into nothingness in her flight

 

[Blue_Horizon]

…

Thanks for the response, I have been away.

By the way “wrt” means with respect to.
(If you get irritated by abbreviations you have not heard before just imagine how irritated readers here get when we use literally translated terms from medieval philosophy that clearly no longer mean the same as modern English. For example your recent assertion that souls have the power of “memory.” )

Thomas divided all being into corporeal, incorpreal, and the being who is a combination of each, man who is both corporeal and incorporeal, and beings of the mind.

That’s an interesting interpretation and explains why we are unable to dialogue effectively on this point. It is my own understanding that the Dominican tradition puts Man firmly in the Corporeal Substance camp. I will need to do more research on the matter to confirm if your view is accurate. I can see how one might come to that position as an unassisted lay reader of Aquinas’s works but it doesn’t seem to gel with what I was taught (or perhaps did not avert to).

I believe Aristotle would have serious difficulties with this view. While you prob don’t think that matters, it prob does in terms of the OP’s (original poster) actual question which is concerned with a philosophical approach to the issue not one of Revelation.

You would have to place it [the Soul] under the incorporeal. But it has to be understood that the soul is the substantial form of the man, that man is a composite of matter and form ( soul )…It would be a substantial change.

Yes, significant qualifications obviously need to be made once we determine where we locate the Soul in terms of substance.

However I am not sure you are correct here either, even if we accept your above view.
My understanding of a substantial change means that the form has been replaced and identity in the change has therefore been lost.
If that is the case then I am not sure we can say death is a substantial change.
If we can say this then I am not at all sure what “substance” may mean anymore. It doesn’t seem to follow Aristotle any longer.

Now look who’s getting dogmatic. I doubt whether your boss and I would get along very well.

Receive it lightly just as it was proffered lightly to make a point.

I don’t mind if you call man a substance as long as it is understood that man is a composite of the corporeal and the incorporeal or of the material and the spiritual, of matter and form. … Man is a special case

Hmmn. The whole point of philosophy is to develop concepts that move beyond “special cases” so I am not so sure on this point as mentioned above.

Now I wish to reiterate what I presented in my posts #s 207 and 208 where I stated the Church’s teaching in regard to the nature of man.

All good but this is just preaching to the choir. The OP seeks philosophic argument not the authority of Revelation - which can therefore only serve as a guide in this endeavour.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Thanks for the response, I have been away.

By the way “wrt” means with respect to.
(If you get irritated by abbreviations you have not heard before just imagine how irritated readers here get when we use literally translated terms from medieval philosophy that clearly no longer mean the same as modern English. For example your recent assertion that souls have the power of “memory.” )

That’s an interesting interpretation and explains why we are unable to dialogue effectively on this point. It is my own understanding that the Dominican tradition puts Man firmly in the Corporeal Substance camp. I will need to do more research on the matter to confirm if your view is accurate. I can see how one might come to that position as an unassisted lay reader of Aquinas’s works but it doesn’t seem to gel with what I was taught (or perhaps did not avert to).

I believe Aristotle would have serious difficulties with this view. While you prob don’t think that matters, it prob does in terms of the OP’s (original poster) actual question which is concerned with a philosophical approach to the issue not one of Revelation.

Yes, significant qualifications obviously need to be made once we determine where we locate the Soul in terms of substance.

However I am not sure you are correct here either, even if we accept your above view.
My understanding of a substantial change means that the form has been replaced and identity in the change has therefore been lost.
If that is the case then I am not sure we can say death is a substantial change.
If we can say this then I am not at all sure what “substance” may mean anymore. It doesn’t seem to follow Aristotle any longer.

Receive it lightly just as it was proffered lightly to make a point.

Hmmn. The whole point of philosophy is to develop concepts that move beyond “special cases” so I am not so sure on this point as mentioned above.

All good but this is just preaching to the choir. The OP seeks philosophic argument not the authority of Revelation - which can therefore only serve as a guide in this endeavour.

I’m sure enough about my own position not to have doubts. Whether you agree or not the human soul is a special case, it does not fit nicely into the Categories. That is why Thomas refused to " ape " Aristotle. The Neo-Platonists were a breed unto themselves and I wouldn’t be too concerned with their philosophy. Thomism is the one sure, reliable philosophy. Stick with Thomas and you won’t go far wrong.

As for the O.P., I think he was just interested in getting us to write his paper for him - we get a lot of those.

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’m sure enough about my own position not to have doubts. Whether you agree or not the human soul is a special case, it does not fit nicely into the Categories. That is why Thomas refused to " ape " Aristotle. The Neo-Platonists were a breed unto themselves and I wouldn’t be too concerned with their philosophy. Thomism is the one sure, reliable philosophy. Stick with Thomas and you won’t go far wrong.

As for the O.P., I think he was just interested in getting us to write his paper for him - we get a lot of those.

Linus2nd

Its my experience that without doubts we “ape” without realising .

I see a harmony between Aristotle/Aquinas on most things.
So when someone says Aquinas departs from Aristotle on key points my first reaction is to check whether that is actually true.

For example, you opine that death is a substantial change.
Yet form remains unchanged.

That at first pass defies the hylomorphic definition of “substantial change”.
For if the base form remains the same then, at least according to Aristotle, there has been
no change in the substance.

I believe you may mistaken at least on this point.
What Thomistic texts are you working from on this point?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

LinusThe2nd/PolyTropos
You may be interested in this article.

While I am not so sure about the force of his conclusions his interpretation of relevant texts from Aquinas/Aristotle appear cogent.

His analysis of the weaknesses of Aquinas’s “lightness argument” and Aquinas’s unjustified conclusion that intellective acts that require no bodily organ must imply immortality of the soul are exactly the conclusions I have come to independently.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

LinusThe2nd/PolyTropos
You may be interested in this article.

While I am not so sure about the force of his conclusions his interpretation of relevant texts from Aquinas/Aristotle appear cogent.

His analysis of the weaknesses of Aquinas’s “lightness argument” and Aquinas’s unjustified conclusion that intellective acts that require no bodily organ must imply immortality of the soul are exactly the conclusions I have come to independently.

I find Thomas’ arguments quit convincing so I’m not interested in debating scores of non-Catholics or even Catholics who think otherwise. Of course nothing in Thomas’ philosophy is " dogma, " but much of it, including his teaching on the immortality of the soul comes mighty close. For me the issue is settled and I just don’t have time to defend his position ad nauseum with skeptics. Accept it or not, no one has come closer.

The Church agrees with Thomas that the soul is the substantial form of the soul. According to Thomas the sudden change by which a substance looses its substantial form and acquires a different one is a substantial change. In death the body looses its substantial form and the body becomes a non-living masse of chemical and organic elements which rather quickly devolves into the most elementary substances and eventurally to the most elementary inorganic substances.

That the soul survives makes it a special substance for it is the only example of such a form continuing to exist after a substantial change. Of course one cannot " prove " that it contiunes to exist. That is a philosophical conclusion based on Thomas’ philosophy. It also happens to be Catholic Dogma.

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I find Thomas’ arguments quit convincing so I’m not interested in debating scores of non-Catholics or even Catholics who think otherwise.

L2 I believe the day when we are no longer willing to even give a hearing to the considered observations of sincere scholars on points we hold dear is the day we lose solidarity with humanity and give up on our mission/apologetics. If that is where you are at then haven’t you forfeit the right to even make the above comment and be respected?

Personally I welcome such discussion as I believe true wisdom comes from a willingness to critique our own creaturely/frail positions through the eyes of others who may see what we cannot. We all clutch our “sacred cow” truths far too tightly for them to survive. They need fresh air. Even Aquinas observed that with true wisdom comes grief. We must always be prepared to let things go - often we hold them only for personal comfort.

According to Thomas the sudden change by which a substance looses its substantial form and acquires a different one is a substantial change.

Yes, yes of course, but isn’t this is merely “aping” Aquinas as you put it L2.
In fact you have enumerated no more than a tautology, I do not need to observe nature to now it is always true by the definition of the terms used - so not very helpful.

That the soul survives makes it a special substance for it is the only example of such a form continuing to exist after a substantial change.

Ah, the “special case” argument. A sign of a poor or less than mature synthesis in my experience.

What you have not been able to counter yet is the charge that death is merely an accidental change if form has been preserved. Aquinas, if he really believes what you suggest, is contradicting Aristotle which I find less likely. I asked you to provide texts from Aquinas (or your own philosophic insights) to resolve this contradiction…

The other difficulty implied above is that identity seems to be lost in the above explanation. How can “I” have two different substances, two different Natures.
Is this an example of reverse “Incarnation”. That is, just as Jesus’s “conception/birth” heralded his acquisition of a second nature…does human death signify our acquisition of a second nature? (Of course we are not speaking of divinisation - even this is not the acquiring of a 2nd nature for we will always be adopted sons not “blood” sons of God)

So if substantial change has happened then we must have gained on top of human-nature another “disembodied-soul” nature. Which is not the best name for an independent nature (though it does point to an intrinsic affinity (tendency as Aquinas outs it) between these two natures).

At the moment I cannot think of any other mechanism for preserving Person-al identity
(for we cannot call it “human identity”) if death is indeed the sort of substantial change you present above?

Of course one cannot " prove " that it contiunes to exist. That is a philosophical conclusion based on Thomas’ philosophy. It also happens to be Catholic Dogma.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

L2 I believe the day when we are no longer willing to even give a hearing to the considered observations of sincere scholars on points we hold dear is the day we lose solidarity with humanity and give up on our mission/apologetics. If that is where you are at then haven’t you forfeit the right to even make the above comment and be respected?

Personally I welcome such discussion as I believe true wisdom comes from a willingness to critique our own creaturely/frail positions through the eyes of others who may see what we cannot. We all clutch our “sacred cow” truths far too tightly for them to survive. They need fresh air. Even Aquinas observed that with true wisdom comes grief. We must always be prepared to let things go - often we hold them only for personal comfort.

Yes, yes of course, but isn’t this is merely “aping” Aquinas as you put it L2.
In fact you have enumerated no more than a tautology, I do not need to observe nature to now it is always true by the definition of the terms used - so not very helpful.

Ah, the “special case” argument. A sign of a poor or less than mature synthesis in my experience.

I don’t care to address derogatory remarks.

I have not been " apeing " Thomas, I happen to agree with him.

I assume that every man has been given an intellect to work with, most of them have a better one than my own. I can’t help it if they refuse to use it or if they insist on being ideologues as an excuse to escape the use of that reason. If you feel moved to exercise a type of philosophical evangelisim with them, flay away. I don’t feel moved to waste my time that way.

What you have not been able to counter yet is the charge that death is merely an accidental change if form has been preserved. Aquinas, if he really believes what you suggest, is contradicting Aristotle which I find less likely. I asked you to provide texts from Aquinas (or your own philosophic insights) to resolve this contradiction.

Well, you could read Aquinas’ Commentray on Aristotle’s Metaphysics where he discusses substantial change. At the moment I’m not sure he addresses that particular point. You can take a look at Ques 75, art 6, S.T., Part 1 where Thomas discusses the the question " …whether the human soul can pass away…". He answers in the negative because the human soul is a substantial form having existence per se. Therefore, it cannot pass away.

Here is a good source for most of Thomas’ works which have been translated into English, you will find many useful things here. dhspriory.org/thomas/

The other difficulty implied above is that identity seems to be lost in the above explanation. How can “I” have two different substances, two different Natures.
Is this an example of reverse “Incarnation”. That is, just as Jesus’s “conception/birth” heralded his acquisition of a second nature…does human death signify our acquisition of a second nature? (Of course we are not speaking of divinisation - even this is not the acquiring of a 2nd nature for we will always be adopted sons not “blood” sons of God)

You forget that the human soul is a special case, it bridges the gulf between the corporeal and the incorporeal. So while it has existence per se, its proper mode of existence is as the substantial form of man. If you follow Thomas above, he makes that clear.

So if substantial change has happened then we must have gained on top of human-nature another “disembodied-soul” nature. Which is not the best name for an independent nature (though it does point to an intrinsic affinity (tendency as Aquinas outs it) between these two natures).

No, the soul has not changed, it remains the same being, it is man who has changed.
His soul has left his body and he no longer exists as a man, he has undergone a substantial change ( as I mentioned in a previous post ).

At the moment I cannot think of any other mechanism for preserving Person-al identity
(for we cannot call it “human identity”) if death is indeed the sort of substantial change you present above?

Obviously our " identity " follows the soul. Whether as man or as a disembodied soul, we properly maintain our identity. Though as a disembodied soul our identity is less that perfect, yet it is perfectly self-aware.

Linus2nd

Of course one cannot " prove " that it contiunes to exist. That is a philosophical conclusion based on Thomas’ philosophy. It also happens to be Catholic Dogma.

Did you want to comment on this?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I don’t care to address derogatory remarks.

I have not been " apeing " Thomas, I happen to agree with him.

I assume that every man has been given an intellect to work with, most of them have a better one than my own. I can’t help it if they refuse to use it or if they insist on being ideologues as an excuse to escape the use of that reason. If you feel moved to exercise a type of philosophical evangelisim with them, flay away. I don’t feel moved to waste my time that way.

Well, you could read Aquinas’ Commentray on Aristotle’s Metaphysics where he discusses substantial change. At the moment I’m not sure he addresses that particular point. You can take a look at Ques 75, art 6, S.T., Part 1 where Thomas discusses the the question " …whether the human soul can pass away…". He answers in the negative because the human soul is a substantial form having existence per se. Therefore, it cannot pass away.

Here is a good source for most of Thomas’ works which have been translated into English, you will find many useful things here. dhspriory.org/thomas/

You forget that the human soul is a special case, it bridges the gulf between the corporeal and the incorporeal. So while it has existence per se, its proper mode of existence is as the substantial form of man. If you follow Thomas above, he makes that clear.

No, the soul has not changed, it remains the same being, it is man who has changed.
His soul has left his body and he no longer exists as a man, he has undergone a substantial change ( as I mentioned in a previous post ).

Obviously our " identity " follows the soul. Whether as man or as a disembodied soul, we properly maintain our identity. Though as a disembodied soul our identity is less that perfect, yet it is perfectly self-aware.

L2 if you are unable to provide specific texts with your own analysis (rather than generic comments) I don’t think there is much more to mine for the present.
Thankyou for your observations to date.

 

[polytropos]

LinusThe2nd/PolyTropos
You may be interested in this article.

I don’t have a lot of time to look closely at this, but its central premise seems to be underspecified:

Still, for a thing to remain in existence (indeed, to be in existence in the first place—whether abstractly or concretely) the thing in question must have all of its essential properties.

Such a statement has to be qualified. For instance, Aquinas would hold that a brain-damaged patient, who is alive but will not perform any more intellective acts for the remainder of his life, still is essentially a thinking, rational being. Essential properties are not straightforwardly necessary properties. A thing does not cease to exist when it ceases to exercise one of its essential properties. This seems to be an issue when the author makes claims like this:

I also say that St. Thomas teaches that, necessarily, substantial forms, so far as they exist, actualize matter; that is, they are essentially enmattered and that means, vis-à-vis the human soul-as-form, that human souls are essentially embodied.

He quotes Aquinas where Aquinas claims that a human soul can that of an animal, ie. a material living thing. So Aquinas seems to recognize the sorts of objections the author is raising. But for whatever reason (at least as far as I can tell–I was skimming), the author does not seem to show that Aquinas’s reasons for making the distinction in the case of the human soul are inadequate.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Quote:
Still, for a thing to remain in existence (indeed, to be in existence in the first place—whether abstractly or concretely) the thing in question must have all of its essential properties.

PT this is exactly the main reservation I had wrt his overall argument.
Obviously the power of a substance need not be exercised at any given moment.
Just because I do not lift 100kg weights does not mean I cannot do so when I wish to.

However I do not feel sufficiently “fluent” in philosophy to definitively reject his thesis as I must admit I do not completely grasp:
(a) the principle of Aquinas that he is obviously making a lot of (namely if a power does not act it does not exist)
(b) no disembodied soul ever at any time has ever lifted 100kg weights (of course I mean its act of bodily existence) so we must wonder if the power actually exists or they are bluffing!

What I mean by (b) is probably the usual contradiction between apriori thinking and aposteriori thinking (ie rationalists versus empiricists).

That is, how do we come to the conclusion that a species has a “power” in the first place?
By induction. E.g. we note that most of the human species (not the handicapped) evidences acts of intellection fairly regularly. Therefore we rightly posit a potentiality that is sometimes activated and sometimes not. This we call a static “power” and becomes an essential definition of the species. I find it interesting that we grant this of the species as a whole rather than just the many individuals we observe. Especially as the handicapped never demonstrate such a power. Aquinas counters this objection by saying that we judge the essence of a species by its best exemplars and the absence of such powers in other individuals is consistently explained by some external blockage as a privation of that inherent power (eg malformation of the intermediary organ). (Personally I find this argument more probable than logical or certain.)

So there is a difficulty with disembodied souls. Not one of these souls, at any time, will ever effect an act of bodily existence. Therefore, according to principles of induction we cannot posit the existence of such a power in disembodied souls.
And we cannot say, “ah, they did before death, so they still have the power but are dormant because of bodily privation.” And we cannot say this because the DS is a different substance from the living man (that substance was composite of body and soul).

So this is the difficulty. Now L2 would prob say that yes the substance is different but the form is still the same so the above argument does hold. The problem is just one of bodily privation not one of absence of a power.

The difficulty it seems for me is that we have no philosophical precedents for discussing “substantial change” which, because of identity of form, is not really “substantial change”. To me the author could be correct if we accept that the DS is a different “substance” from Man. If a new substance never demonstrates a power then, logically, it does not deserve to be credited such a power in its definition.

This is the limit of my understanding though, I am still trying to get my head around “substantial change” with continuity of form. This is unchartered Aristotelian territory for he never invisaged such a possibility in his writings as far as I know.

 

[polytropos]

Obviously the power of a substance need not be exercised at any given moment.
Just because I do not lift 100kg weights does not mean I cannot do so when I wish to.

However I do not feel sufficiently “fluent” in philosophy to definitively reject his thesis as I must admit I do not completely grasp:
(a) the principle of Aquinas that he is obviously making a lot of (namely if a power does not act it does not exist)
(b) no disembodied soul ever at any time has ever lifted 100kg weights (of course I mean its act of bodily existence) so we must wonder if the power actually exists or they are bluffing!

This isn’t what I mean. “Powers” definitely include passive potencies (like the power to life 100kg weights even when you aren’t doing so). But what I’m getting at are the powers that an entity possesses essentially even though they can’t be exercised right now. It’s not just that they aren’t, but that they cannot. Very young children and brain-damaged patients, for instance, cannot engage in rational thinking, but they are still (on Aquinas’s account) rational animals. To have a power “essentially,” in other words, is a much weaker requirement than to have a power “necessarily” (whether that modality is understood in medieval or contemporary terms).

That is, how do we come to the conclusion that a species has a “power” in the first place?
By induction. E.g. we note that most of the human species (not the handicapped) evidences acts of intellection fairly regularly. Therefore we rightly posit a potentiality that is sometimes activated and sometimes not. This we call a static “power” and becomes an essential definition of the species. I find it interesting that we grant this of the species as a whole rather than just the many individuals we observe. Especially as the handicapped never demonstrate such a power. Aquinas counters this objection by saying that we judge the essence of a species by its best exemplars and the absence of such powers in other individuals is consistently explained by some external blockage as a privation of that inherent power (eg malformation of the intermediary organ). (Personally I find this argument more probable than logical or certain.)

Well, it’s like describing a child in grade school as essentially having a power to reproduce. The power is of the essence, ie. it depends on what his species is. He is of a species that is capable of reproducing; his essence is grounded in his form.

So there is a difficulty with disembodied souls. Not one of these souls, at any time, will ever effect an act of bodily existence. Therefore, according to principles of induction we cannot posit the existence of such a power in disembodied souls.
And we cannot say, “ah, they did before death, so they still have the power but are dormant because of bodily privation.” And we cannot say this because the DS is a different substance from the living man (that substance was composite of body and soul).

Disembodied souls won’t be able to perform acts of bodily existence, yes. They are still substantial forms that “encode” those powers in complete substances. The article seems to interpret the fact that they couldn’t perform such acts as evidence that they could not exist, but that seems not to follow, and without an argument against Aquinas’s account, we have no reason to accept it.

It’s also worth noting that the argument turns on a rather dubious assumption concerning Aquinas’s metaphysics–“the first essential property of a soul, on the Thomistic account, is to be the principle by which a composite thing exists.” A soul is a form. Therefore, the human substance has an essence accounted for by the soul. But that does not mean that the soul itself has an essence (for the soul itself is not a complete substance). Then to say that the soul is “the first principle of life in those things which in our judgment live” does not seem to commit Aquinas to the idea that the soul has an essential property of configuring matter to make a human substance, for forms don’t properly have essential properties of themselves, just those of the substances they configure. Aquinas’s principle here seems to commit him to the idea that every substance has a form, not that every form is a proper metaphysical part of a substance. And Aquinas will readily admit that while the soul subsists, the human substance does not–for it could be said to lack one of its essential properties of being enmattered.

To me the author could be correct if we accept that the DS is a different “substance” from Man. If a new substance never demonstrates a power then, logically, it does not deserve to be credited such a power in its definition.

Well, the disembodied soul is not a substance at all; it is incomplete.

This is unchartered Aristotelian territory for he never invisaged such a possibility in his writings as far as I know.

Aristotle could not have. The essence/existence distinction is required.

 

[polytropos]

A paragraph out of Ed Feser’s recent blog post is relevant to the possibility of retaining form without essential properties:

Now one of the several reasons why we must distinguish essence and properties is that without this distinction we cannot make sense of the distinction between normal and defective instances of a kind. For example, cats are of their nature four-legged, but that does not mean that every single cat will in fact have four legs. For genetic defect or injury might deprive some cat of one or more of its legs. Four-leggedness is a property of cats in the sense that it flows from their essence, but the flow can be “blocked,” as it were. Now if instead we think of the essence of a cat as a cluster of attributes (as contemporary metaphysicians typically would), we might conclude that “being four-legged” must not really be essential to being a cat (since there are three-legged cats), and thus must not be one of the attributes in the cluster. But we would fail thereby to capture the way in which a cat’s lacking all of its four legs is abnormal in a way that (say) its failing to be grey is not. This can be captured only by seeing four-leggedness as a true property which flows from but is nevertheless distinct from the essence (which is why in aberrant cases it may not be manifested), whereas greyness is not a property of the cat at all (in the Scholastic sense) but rather what Scholastics would call a “contingent (as opposed to proper) accident” of the cat.

The invocation of the term in the case of the soul is not at all ad hoc. That essential identity can be retained without particular essential properties is indeed the entire point of essentialist metaphysics.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

A paragraph out of Ed Feser’s recent blog post is relevant to the possibility of retaining form without essential properties:

The invocation of the term in the case of the soul is not at all ad hoc. That essential identity can be retained without particular essential properties is indeed the entire point of essentialist metaphysics.

PTunless you are saying something very subtle I think I already averted to this below when I spoke of privation didn’t I?’
" [if] the handicapped never demonstrate such a power… Aquinas counters this objection by saying that we judge the essence of a species by its best exemplars and the absence of such powers in other individuals is consistently explained by some external blockage as a privation…"

“Essential properties” sounds a bit ambiguous. I would have thought that essential properties are those that must exist - but perhaps what is really meant is the “archetypal accidents” by which we identify the essence in question in the first place.

The problem which Feser does not directly address above is how we identify what the essence in question is in the first place. How do we know Cat essence involves four legs and not three legs? By induction - most kittens born of cats have four legs. But if most cats had three legs then a few with four legs would be regarded as aberrant.

Now this is just the case with disembodied souls. Not a single one evidences an act of bodily existence so whence our confidence such belongs to the essence of a soul?
It seems this is purely on the basis that the form is the same as that of a Man.
That sounds more like an assertion than solid logic but that may be because I haven’t got my head around a substantial change without a change of form yet.

Your phrase/concept of “incomplete substance” is intriguing.
Can you supply texts from Aristotle or Aquinas which well exhibit this concept.

I don’t believe they held to this understanding - it is purely a Jesuitical (Suarez) “interpretation” isn’t it. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia says it is not really a good turn of phrase. I agree, my Dominican tradition would see the expression as a contradiction in terms.

That is, a substance either fully exists in itself (though it may have accidental privations) or does not exist at all. The only sense in which it would make sense to Aquinas is if it really refers to a mere component of a full substance (which is “known” rationally but does not and cannot exist by itself.)

Thus matter is an incomplete substance (which does not exist in itself) and form is an incomplete substance (which does not exist by itself) but together they are components of an actually existing substance.

However Suarez would go further than this. He would say that by an act of God not only the soul but also Prime Matter could exist without its counterpart (matter or form as appropriate). Aquinas (at least as interpretted by Dominicans) would never accept such a thing.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The Catholic Encyclopedia ( the old one ) summarizes Thomas’ position as follows :
" •the rational soul, which is one with the sensitive and vegetative principle, is the form of the body. This was defined as of faith by the Council of Vienne of 1311;
•the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance, i.e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for existence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes up the substantial unity of human nature;
•though connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely simple, i.e. of an unextended and spiritual nature. It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher operations being intrinsically independent of the organism;
•the rational soul is produced by special creation at the moment when the organism is sufficiently developed to receive it. In the first stage of embryonic development, the vital principle has merely vegetative powers; then a sensitive soul comes into being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organism — later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates a special creative act. Many modern theologians have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas’s teaching, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused into the embryo at the first moment of its existence. "

This is what I have said myself in different words. I think it is a little silly to be arguing about how the soul could be either a complete or an incomplete substance when disembodied. The human soul, however defined, does not fit neatly into Arisotelian Categories of Substance/Accident. Nor does it fit into Porphery’s schema.

This didn’t seem to bother Jesus, nor does it bother the Church. Thomas’ explanation is certainly as good as any explanation, better than any other in my opinion. One thing for certain, the exact truth of its pricise substantial standing will never be definitively proven by anyone.to the satisfaction of all. And I sincerely doubt if the Church will ever find it necessay to Define that particular point. All we know from the Church is that it is the " form " of the man, yet it is not merely a " principle " as other forms. Rather it is substantial, it is a substance as well. So right there ,its special standing as a " form " is seen. For the " forms " of other creatures are not substances but simply " principles. "

So we can argue until the " cows come home, " and nothing will be solved. And, really, since the question never bothered Christ and has never bothered the Church, why should we fret over it?

Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

PTunless you are saying something very subtle I think I already averted to this below when I spoke of privation didn’t I?’
" [if] the handicapped never demonstrate such a power… Aquinas counters this objection by saying that we judge the essence of a species by its best exemplars and the absence of such powers in other individuals is consistently explained by some external blockage as a privation…"

I didn’t say that Feser’s post shed new light. We’ve been discussing the same idea throughout this entire topic. I just said it’s relevant.

“Essential properties” sounds a bit ambiguous. I would have thought that essential properties are those that must exist - but perhaps what is really meant is the “archetypal accidents” by which we identify the essence in question in the first place.

Essential properties are not necessary properties (again, whether that modality is to be understood in medieval or contemporary terms). That isn’t even so much a scholastic point; in general, essential and necessary do not mean the same thing.

This article clarifies the relationship between essence and properties.

You’re right that “essential property” is a bad term. All properties (on the scholastic-essentialist terminology) are those accidents which flow essentially from form, so the “essential” is redundant in the term “essential property”. (I have been reading a lot of more contemporary philosophy, and the analysts are looser with the term “property,” since they’ve largely dispensed with the term “accident”.)

The problem which Feser does not directly address above is how we identify what the essence in question is in the first place. How do we know Cat essence involves four legs and not three legs? By induction - most kittens born of cats have four legs. But if most cats had three legs then a few with four legs would be regarded as aberrant.

Now this is just the case with disembodied souls.

Well, as you’re making clear, if this is a problem for Thomistic metaphysics, then it’s not at all a problem particular to disembodied souls. Skepticism about essences is a separate and more general issue.

But to say that our knowledge of cat essence boils down to an inductive inference based on the quantity of cats we’re familiar with is, as you know, not an accurate representation of Aquinas’s account of knowledge or perception.

Not a single one evidences an act of bodily existence so whence our confidence such belongs to the essence of a soul?
It seems this is purely on the basis that the form is the same as that of a Man.
That sounds more like an assertion than solid logic but that may be because I haven’t got my head around a substantial change without a change of form yet.

Yes, it is based on the idea that if the form of man has an immaterial act, then material dissolution of the substance cannot dissolve it fully. That hardly seems “more like an assertion than solid logic.” The upshot of arguments for the immateriality of the intellect just is that material dissolution does not (fully) dissolve the intellect.

As we touched upon earlier, is a change in form. The living man becomes dead flesh, which is flesh only equivocally (on Aquinas’s account). The human substance becomes some dead-flesh sort of substance, which has a different form from the human substance. The human form persists, but where there was substantial change, there is also a new form.

Your phrase/concept of “incomplete substance” is intriguing.
Can you supply texts from Aristotle or Aquinas which well exhibit this concept.

I don’t believe they held to this understanding - it is purely a Jesuitical (Suarez) “interpretation” isn’t it. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia says it is not really a good turn of phrase. I agree, my Dominican tradition would see the expression as a contradiction in terms.

Well, as Linus shows, Catholic Encyclopedia does use the term. I didn’t give it much thought. But I think it is rather clear that what I mean is what Aquinas means: that the soul is not a complete substance, though it is a proper metaphysical part of a substance. By “incomplete substance,” as is evident from my comments throughout this thread, I don’t mean that the soul is a substance which has some accident of being incomplete. I mean that it is not a complete substance. (In other terms, I used “incomplete” as an adjectivealienans.)

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The Catholic Encyclopedia ( the old one ) summarizes Thomas’ position as follows :

I think it is a little silly to be arguing about how the soul could be either a complete or an incomplete substance when disembodied. The human soul, however defined, does not fit neatly into Arisotelian Categories of Substance/Accident. Nor does it fit into Porphery’s schema… For the " forms " of other creatures are not substances but simply " principles. "

…And, really, since the question never bothered Christ and has never bothered the Church, why should we fret over it?

Linus2nd

L2 not quite sure why you felt the need to quote The CE. You will have to excuse me if I consider its take on Aquinas with a grain of salt - esp on the topic of susbatnce where there seem to be as many contrary interpretations of Aquinas as there are of Aristotle.

The only reason I mentioned the CE was wrt the ambiguous phrase “incomplete substance” where even this publication accepts there are difficulties.
*"[The body] exists only as determined by a form; and if that form is not a human soul, then the “body” is not a human body. It is in this sense that the Scholastic phrase “incomplete substance”, applied to body and soul alike, is to be understood. Though strictly speaking self-contradictory, the phrase expresses in a convenient form the abiding reciprocity of relation between these two “principles of substantial being”. *

Therefore it makes no sense to speak of the disembodied soul as “an incomplete substance”. It is in fact a complete substance (a lone soul), if it were incomplete it would not exist. What is really meant by this phrase is that in Man the soul is a co principle of Man substance. Hence body is also an incomplete substance in Man. And in death the Body no longer exists. How can it, it is an incomplete substance. It is just an aggregation of organic chemicals.

Also, as prev stated, I do not believe Aquinas is well interpretted by use of this phrase as it is a Suarezian modification/interpretation.

L2 I am not arguing about anything wrt “incomplete substance” other than trying to work out what PT is really meaning by this poorly chosen phrase. I would argue that nothing of Aquinas can be helpfully learnt by it, only Suarez.

WRT Porphery’s Tree and the placement of Man and the Disembodied Soul my ongoing research yet confirms me in my original position:

“Man” is clearly an incorporeal substance. The Disembodied Soul is clearly an Incorporeal Substance. There is only a problem when one tries to treat the Soul in the abstract (ie as the same “form” which is what I believe you are really doing.) and implode the distinctions in each different state.
*“In the system of classification and definition shown in the Arbor Porphyriana, man is a substance, corporeal, living, sentient, and rational.” *(CE)

As I say I am still getting m head around how there can be a substantial change without a change in form (which contradicts Aristotle, as does the assumption that immaterial ops imply immortality):
To that end it seems to me if we start out seeing the rational soul as a complete and existing substance in itself…then it is not hard to see how we can then further define the existence of a completely different substance (“Man”) whereby this original substance is but a co-principle along with matter. This understanding would mean we cannot properly speak of a “human soul” except in Man. A disembodied soul is in no way human. Of course this incorporeal form is potentially the soul of Man in a way that an angel form is not. In that sense a disembodied soul might be said to be a “human soul” (and also because of “history” - it once animated a Man) but these are not univocal predications it seems to me.
It is hard to come to this understanding of the matter because we don’t start out as disembodied souls, we start out as Men. Yet, when we read the SCG it becomes very clear that Aquinas, ontologically, starts out with the intellective soul as a lower emanation from God after the pure intellective form (angels). God/angels/intellective-souls is Aquinas’s logical progresssion and unfolding in SCG. Very interesting.

Why should we fret?
We shouldn’t. But if people are going to try and use the light of other people’s reason (whether Aristotle or Aquinas) to shine a little more light on some of the more non-intuitive truths of Faith then lets be sure those thinkers are not being used and abused - let alone whether their views are better or worse with age.