Professor: Jorge Martínez Lucena

The Evolution of the Idea of Humanhood in Western Culture (II)

1. Three Traditions in Greek Philosophy

2. Naturalization of the Soul

3. The Challenge of Personal Identity

4. History of the Naturalization of the Soul

5. Naturalization Opens up a Lot of Questions

Contents

1. “Greek thinkers came up with three sorts of answers to this question. One was that there is a changeless realm, like the ideal realm of geometrical objects, which is beyond the ever-changing material world and that one’s essential self –one’s psyche (or, soul)- resides in this changeless realm and thereby ensures one’s personal immortality. This answer, due to Plato (…) would inspire countless generations of Western thinkers.” (Raymond Martin & John Barresi, The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self, 2006: 4)

Three Traditions in Greek Philosophy

2. “Another answer, due to Aristotle, was that there is a changeless dimension within every material object, which allows material objects, including human beings, to remain the same in spite of changing but which may not ensure one’s personal immortality.” (Raymond Martin & John Barresi, 2006: 4)

Three Traditions in Greek Philosophy

3.“Finally, the materialistic atomists, a third tradition of Greek thinkers, argued that both change and stability in material objects are the product of changeless, material atoms coming together and pulling apart. These thinkers reasoned that often more or less long-lasting configurations of atoms are named and, hence, become available to be known. People, or at least their material bodies, the atomist reasoned, are temporary configurations of this sort.” (Raymond Martin & John Barresi, 2006: 4)

Three Traditions in Greek Philosophy

“Today almost all theorists accept modern physical science as the backdrop against which self and personal persistence must be explained. Hence, they assume some version or other of materialist atomism” (Raymond Martin & John Barresi, 2006: 4)

Naturalization of the Soul

Questions:

1. Is science the only backdrop against which the self and personal persistence can be explained? Can science explain who I am, or what my personal identity consist of?

2. How can we articulate our explanation of our personal persistence without the existence of the soul? Can the soul be surrogated by self or personal identity?

Naturalization of the Soul

Why to ensure the changeless part of our humanity is practically necessary?

In case we cannot explain the stability of our personal identity we should face certain problems in our practical life. “These facts play an absolutely basic role in our day-to-day lives. In what follows, I focus on four of the most representative and widely discussed aspects of importance that attach to facts about personal identity: moral responsibility, self-interested concern, compensation, and survival” (Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves, 1996: 14).

The Challenge of Personal Identity

Descartes used the words self and soul as synonyms.

His philosophy is a platonic (dualistic) one. He considers that the human being is composed of “res extensa” (body, material part) and “res cogitans” (soul, self, non-material part).

History of the Naturalization of the Soul

First critique:

Teatrise of Human Nature: “For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.” (Hume, 1888: 252)

History of the Naturalization of Soul

Second Critique:

“The “subject” is not something given, it is something added and invented and projected behind what there is.” (Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 1968: 267)

History of the Naturalization of the Soul

Present-day accounts:

1.“no such things as selves exist in the world: Nobody ever was or had a self” (Metzinger, 2003: 1)

History of the Naturalization of Soul

2.“The brain makes us think that we have a self. Does that mean that the self I think I am is not real? No, it is as real as any activity of the brain. It does mean, however, that one’s self is not an ethereal bit of “soul stuff”” (Churchland, 2002: 124)

History of the Naturalization of the Soul

3.“My brief for the self also led me to conclude that there are many short-lived and succesive selves (if there are selves at all), in the case of ordinary individual human beings.” (Strawson, 1999: 100)

History of the Naturalization of the Soul

Some examples:

1. What about moral responsibility, self-interested concern, compensation, and survival?

2. How can we defend personhood and human dignity?

3. Is it possible to talk about self not as a thing, but as a real and undeniable feature of our experience?

Exercise: How would you answer the questions above ?

Naturalization Opens up Several Questions