Plato's Views on Body and Soul: Critical Analysis Essay

After learning where we stand in what our current situation is, what technologies have we already acquired, and which we are soon to have available, only one question comes to mind: what will be of humans, both as individuals and as a community?

Throughout history, many philosophers have tried to define what a human is. Plato described humans as a being with a body, made from matter, and a soul, similar to an idea according to his philosophical teachings, a perfect thing that comes from the world of ideas, a world where the concepts of everything resided, and thus Plato was the first to propose a dualism within the body. But later on, Aristotle opened a second line in this anthropological debate, defending that humans were not two separate parts but one, a mix of matter and soul.

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Both of these ideas are important and the implications both have when you add the augmentation factor is really interesting. From an Aristotelian perspective, the body and soul are mixed, and contrary to the platonic belief, both of them are equally important. So let’s say in a hundred years someone suffers a terrible accident, and the only way to save them is to replace a great part of their body with a robotic prosthesis, now how much percent of a human must be substituted for them to stop being human? Can someone be called human even if only the nervous system remains and the rest are just robotics? Plato would say that as long as the soul is the same, the body doesn’t matter how it is made therefore yes it would be called a human being as we know today, an Homo Sapiens Sapiens. In this case, I believe Aristotle’s ideas would be much more interesting. Since humans are a balanced mix of soul and body, if one of the two parts is changed then it can no longer be called a human, or at least not the human as we know it today. Changing the body would mean that their capacities to adapt have fully changed, for example, fuel would be different, reproduction would be impossible, and there would be no natural growth (in any case it would be an artificial growth that would happen when changing parts of the body) and the respiratory system would change, so now the question is what do we call what would clearly be this new species? It would definitely be part of the homo family and it has the same brain capacities as normal homo sapiens but with different bodies and different needs, my proposal is Homo Sapiens Machina, which would be a wise man of devices.

The concept that the soul and body are two different entities was first conceptualized by (427-348 BCE) to be known as dualism, Plato would suggest that the body was a host for the soul for it to experience the events of life (Broadie, 2001). He extended this to state that the body was mortal whilst the soul was immortal, and explains this through the chariot allegory. The mind and body work like a chariot in which the driver illustrates the soul trying to guide the two horses (one represents the body, the other represents the mind), and the soul attempts to lead both (Hebbar, 2020). Combining this with the belief that the soul operates with 3 levels: spiritual, thought reason, and appetite desire (Hunt,2007). With this, Plato compares the soul in the Phaedrus to a pair of two steeds, one possesses a ‘lively yet obedient’ character that represents the spirit, and the other depicts ‘violence and unruliness’ illustrating appetite that is both combined and charioted (by reason), they work together (Hunt,2007). Amazingly, Plato`s comparison foretells Freud's understanding of the unconscious mind over two thousand years prior. Additionally, Plato thought the soul`s destination seems to be ‘the world of the forms’ (theory of forms), whereby the forms ‘exist in an abstract state but are independent of the minds in their own realm’ (Macintosh, 2012). Essentially, as Plato believes knowledge is innate following Socrates, he believes one needs to be taught to retrieve knowledge from another realm (Macintosh, 2012). Furthermore, the theory of forms aligns with the idealist view that any object can be altered or destroyed as material objects are temporary, it cannot be regarded as genuine (Hunt,2007). For instance, if we were to touch a soft or hard object, it is not our sensory receptors that recognize this, but our mind. Plato would suggest the two operate separately and in a way, despite the soul belonging to the world of ideas, it is limited by the body as it can only experience interaction through the body. Frustratingly, due to the nature of dualism and idealism, it proves difficult to validate the theories despite the understanding they provided of how the physical and mental entities operate, and yet remains relevant to the field of psychology today.

Despite the progress dualism and idealism have provided, it fails to acknowledge that objects continue to exist beyond the mind. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) combats this with realism, despite being taught by the idealist Plato at the academy for twenty years (Hunt, 2007). Realism is defined as the view that objects are perceived independently in their own existence regardless of our perception and understanding (Broadie, 1993). Aristotle instead leads with knowledge being derived from sensation and experience, he addresses the section of the soul where thinking occurs the ‘psyche’ and remains consistent in believing the location of where ideas are assembled remains the mind (Hunt, 2007). With realism, it allows for observable proof that is undeniable, as Granger suggests the realistic outlook on Aristotle`s theory of perception sets him as one of the first ‘respectable’ in the history of science (Granger, 1993).

Though the concept originated from Plato, it was Renee Descartes (1596-1650) who coined dualism (Hunt, 2007). In the height of the 15th-16th century, religion was central to Western society despite the growing scientific findings of humans and the world, society was not accommodating scientific developments. Descartes once had an epiphany that encouraged him to disregard the opinions of the ancients (Plato) and instead use reasoning and logic to arrive at his conclusions (Hunt, 2007). With Descartes's doctrine of ideas, it provides two possible explanations (Hunt, 2007): derived ideas which are a result of experiences of the senses, and innate ideas which are abstract concepts such as Heaven or Hell which cannot be experienced in this realm. Descartes argues that one is not born complete with these ideas but develops as they grow, which describes John Locke`s ‘tabula rasa’ which directly translates to blank slate (Duschinsky, 2012). Yet this line of reasoning would not digest well within society at the time as it was believed that one was born with original sin and is tainted, considering how resistant they were to anything but religious explanations (Weldon, 2010). Descartes expanded on Plato`s dualist theory through a realistic approach and provided an observable understanding that overall strengthens the theory of dualism.