1. Team RS Revision 2018: Body And Soul/ Life After Death Soul = mind/ self
What makes a human being ? What is the link between body and soul/mind? Is there a soul/mind? “I feel pain when my hand is hurt” Is my hand me? Is my hand what I have or what I am? Is my hand part of the total sum of what makes me? If my leg is amputated, or I have dementia, or put on weight am I the same person? Am I more now than when I was a baby when a photograph was taken after sixth months and my original cells, body, memories and tastes have changed? Is a human being body and soul/self? Will this soul live on after death? What is the connection between physical brain / consciousness? What is the relationship between our body and mind? The brain is just another organ or greyish mass but what is the connection between this and vivid conscious thought. What am I? Is the soul the real me? Are we just meat, bones muscle and nervous system of my body? What is a soul when it does not take up physical space? How can body be influenced by spiritual soul? Mind and body work together – physical events cause mental ones. We feel this unity.

2. Dualism/ Disembodied Existence : Substance Dualism – Mind/Body are separate
Dualism: There are TWO parts / elements to us – material body and non-material mind/body/spirit/soul/ self. Human consciousness (imagination, artistic skill, memory, story-telling) has qualities beyond mere survival. Swinburne said the Soul is a “Divine Spark.” Keith Ward said the soul gives humanity purpose. Substance dualism – mind and body wholly different substances with the mind/ soul being immaterial and so can exist without the body (at death). Property dualism – 1 substance matter which can have 2 distinct properties 9mental / phyysical0. Socrates: Did not fear death. He said it was like walking into another room and believed in an Immortal/ intelligible/ indestructible soul, the likeness of the Divine, which was unlike the body. Kant: Life after death is essential to the moral fairness of the universe. HH Price: Modern dualistic theory - Next world could be disembodied like our dreams where people have bodies but are not there. Other evidence – ghosts / mediums/ near death / out of body experiences: People see own body, bright light and walk down a tunnel (Dr. Raymond Moody). Losing belief in a soul could damage ethics say Keith Ward and Richard Swinburne.
Plato: Saw soul / body as separate entitIes. Influenced by Pythagoras (distinguished between spiritual soul and material body, said this world in ratio to the next, and when our body dies our soul inhabits another body with no memory ). We have opinions about this ever changing impermanent world where things grow, decay, die. The body is mortal/ changeable. There is no permanence in visible world of things. Only knowledge/ permanence/ certainty in spiritual realm of Forms / Ideals/ Realities. Soul (Greek psyche) is unbreakable/ simple, not created, simple, eternal, immortal and from the world of Forms. The soul existed before my current life. The soul wants to return to World of Forms and escape shell of body. It leaves the physical body at death. The soul is chariot driver in charge of the horses of mind, emotion, desire. The soul has 3 parts (tripartite division- reason, emotion and desire. When the soul recognises beauty, truth and goodness, it remembers its pre- existence in World of Forms. Plato gives the example of a young boy knowing the answers to maths problems because he had learnt about them in the Forms. Plato also gives the argument from opposites - everything comes into being from its opposite – dark from light, light from dark, death from life, life from death. Life and death come from each other in an endless chain. The Allegory of Cave symbolises Plato’s views. The Soul wants to get out of material body. The body can impede the soul. Plato believes the soul is without beginning but Christians believe God creates each soul at conception. Christians also believe an all-powerful God could destroy the soul.
Rene Descartes’ Substance Dualism: Descartes asked can there be any knowledge so certain that we cannot doubt it? The material world and body might be an illusion, he said. We can doubt everything (Scepticism). We can even doubt we have a body (could be dreaming / deceived by malicious demon). Sense experience can be mistaken. But we cannot doubt we are thinking / doubting. This is what Descartes called the First Certainty. “I think therefore I am”, he famously said. For Descartes, this proved the mind existed separately from the body. The mind was wholly different than the body. The body is changeable/ divisible into parts but not mind. There are 2 distinct substances – physical body/ spiritual mind. We are still same person when leg amputated. Body / mind connected at the pineal gland which is the place of common sense and imagination. Descartes believed the mind was the pilot of the body. Mind and body have different properties.

3. Monism: Can be called Soft Materialism: We are 1 being but can still live on
Monism = We are a single being. 1 substance not 2. I am my body not I have a body.
Aristotle: Disagreed with Plato. He believed the soul was substance/ essence/ a real thing. Not distinct from the body. Empiricist. “More than a materialist” says the text book. Believed in 4 Causes. Formal cause gives capabilities/ shape/structure/ nature. The soul is the formal cause of our body. I am a person because the soul gives me life. Otherwise we are just matter. The soul is not simple / immortal. When the light goes out and we die our soul dies. Matter needs the soul to animate it and gives essence to things. The soul animates the body. Like a stamp in wax. The soul is inseparable from the body. The soul gives purpose. The soul of a knife is to cut. Aristotle does speculate that reason might survive death but Aristotle does not believe in a personal LAD. He said that there are 3 elements to soul – 1.vegetative (for nutrition, shared with all living things like plants), 2.appetitive (for movement/passions/ appetites like thirst, hunger, sexual desire, envy, anger, sadness like animals), 3.rational/directive/ intellectual (only humans have, thinking, memories, reflections). The soul is the organisation of body. Not 2 pieces that come part at death. Man is a sort of body.
St. Thomas Aquinas: Influenced by Aristotle: He believed the soul is the first principle which animates living things. When living, our existence is owed to soul. The soul is also called intellect / mind. We are soul, flesh and bones. “Man is soul making use of the body…It is savage superstition to believe body / soul split at death” (Geach). The soul organises body. The soul is not me - life needs body to be animated. Body necessary for me to be me. But the first principle of life cannot be the body otherwise every body would live. It has to be the soul.
John Hick: Soft materialism. We are our bodies but they have a spiritual dimension. My soul is not me. No mind without matter. We are thinking material beings. Mental depends on body. But we are not just material beings. We are psychosomatic unity of body / soul with soul inherited from parents (Traducianism). An all-powerful God will create a replica of us in the next life. If John Smith disappears in London and reappears somewhere else with same memories, we would conclude John Smith was the same person. Hick believed the world a vale of soul making which continues into next life. Our language verified in after life (eschatological verification). Hick did not believe God of love does not create Hell. Irenaean Theodicy - the world was a vale for soul-making which continues in the Next Life.
Religions: Saint Paul said we will be given new imperishable bodies (1 Corinthians) and see God face to face . Jesus rose from the dead. Hinduism/ Sikhism: Our soul (atman) reborn (samsara) until reaches unit with God./ Brahman (moksha) and this is a natural law with evidence from hypnosis / déjà vu. Hindus believe is like caterpillar moving from one leaf to next.

4. Materialism: Only physical matter exists
Materialism = Humans are flesh, blood, nerves and cells. Only substance is a material one. Death of body=death of mind.
Reductionism: Everything about a person reduced to physical processes. Behaviour of brain cells, neurons, electrical activity in brain. Consciousness reducible. Reductive Materialism / Identity Theory: Brain/mind identical. Mental events are physical events and correspond to different brain activities. Chemical reactions are brain events. Consciousness dies with brain.
Behaviourism: BF Skinner: Mental states are learnt behaviours of bodies. Body/Mind inseparable. Mental acts explained by physical. Behave because of our structure /genetic /environment histories. Dennant criticised this saying we are more than animals and reading a book, for example, not learnt behaviour.
Gilbert Ryle: Provides conceptual clarity. Mind and body are not of the same logical type. Mind an aspect of way body behaves. Things are not either mental or physical. Just like you need 2 gloves for a pair. Something that is mental in not different from action. It is category error to separate mind/ body. Just as a rhinoceros is not a butterfly. A University is not different from buildings in town. Team spirit is not separate from cricket match. Division of soldiers is not separate to squadron/platoon. Criticises Descartes’ idea of the “ghost in machine.” No non-physical soul.
Richard Dawkins: Biological Materialism: Soul 1 or traditional idea of soul is primitive superstition based on fear of death / wish fulfilment. It is human fantasy/ myth. There is no empirical evidence for bizarre notion which is evasion not explanation. “No immortal soul or spirit-driven life force / mystic jelly”. “Life is bytes and bytes of digital information. We are DNA survival machines.” DNA survival is our life goal (evolution). Does advocate Soul 2 – surviving through memories/ intellectual feelings. Dawkins called this Memes long before social media! No empirical evidence for Soul 1.
Other criticisms of Dualism/ LAD: 1. Naming something does not prove it. 2. No clarity on how material and spiritual interacts . 3. Is the soul metaphorical? 4. Flew: Makes no sense for personality to survive body. Like Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland where smile survives without body. We cannot witness our own funeral. 5. Just like when we point we express meaning so we need body/ mind. Pointing shows how not why. (Anscombe). 6. Linda Badham: Science questions LAD. NDE explained by lack of oxygen/ drugs. We need our environment to live as we constantly exchange atoms with it. What causes our death would cause our death again as we cannot be repaired without identity changing. Amount of people in Heaven questions practicality / Goodness of God. Next life needs things like trees for it to sustain human life. When in evolution were we given souls? Bodies essential brains shown when we do not eat / sleep. Replica not same as original.

5. Assess whether substance dualism is a convincing approach to questions of body and soul. (Define substance dualism. Define convincing and questions of body and soul. Use Dualism as a whole especially Descartes but also Plato and other positive general arguments and say why it is convincing as you go. Then flip it and question Substance Dualism using Monism and Materialism as more convincing alternatives. Conclude with your view).
To what extent is Plato’s belief in a separate body and soul convincing? (Define convincing and outline Plato’s belief in a separate body and soul using all you know about Plato and pointing out why it is convincing as you go. Use Descartes and general arguments to back it up. Then flip it using critics and criticisms from Monism and Materialism. Conclude with your views).
It makes more sense to say “I am my body” than to say “I have a body.” Discuss. (Define makes more sense. Hopefully you spot that I am my body refers to Monism and Materialism and “I have a body” refers to Dualism. So this is a straight argument between these theories, referring to the question. Therefore, “I have a body” needs to include all thinkers from Materialism/ Monism pointing out strengths as you go. Then question this using “I have a body” Dualism of Plato, Descartes and general views like NDE. Conclude with your views).
Religious faith demands belief in a separate body and soul. Discuss. (This is a very interesting and subtle question. Define demands and separate body / soul. Why would religious belief demand this. Use Plato, Descartes and general arguments (remember Descartes / Plato did believe in a form of God) to agree with question. But then question the question using Monism from Aristotle, Aquinas and Hick to point out body / soul connected. Include idea from St Paul that we will be given new bodies by God. Therefore religious belief demands body and soul connected. Bring in materialism slightly to say either way, demands not true / reasonable. Question whether demands is too strong a word. Conclude with your views).
Critically assess the view that human beings have immortal souls. (Define immortal souls. Use Dualism from Plato, Descartes and general arguments like NDE to point out why humans have immortal souls. Use Materialism from the likes of Dawkins to criticise whether humans have immortal souls. Use monism to point out that there may be immortal souls but these need bodies. Conclude with your views).
Discuss critically view that the mind and consciousness can be fully experienced in terms of physical, material interactions. (Alert – examiner mind game. Easy to run away with this one but only an evaluation of materialism. The question is quoting a materialist point so start by explaining materialism in general, pointing out strengths, relating to question terms directly. Then question the question using Dualism and Monism before concluding with your views.
Evaluate the view that the thinking mind is separate from the body. Define thinking mind. Once again this is a little mind game but hopefully you spot the question is just an evaluation of dualism. So, start by agreeing with the question using Descartes, Plato and general arguments in favour. Then criticise using Materialism and Monism. Conclude with your views.
People are no more than complex physical matter. (Explain that this is the view of materialism. Use Dawkins, critics and materialist thinkers to back this up. Use Plato, Descartes and Dualist ideas to say people are more than this and therefore can survive death. Use Monism. Conclusion).