Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum

You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?



7/12/2015 7:52 am  #1


Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

I'd like to better understand the Thomistic arguments for the immortality of the soul. 
The basic idea seems to be this.  every living thing has a soul, which is nothing more than the form of the living thing.  Forms are immaterial, so showing the immateriality of the soul does nothing to prove that it can survive death.  What Thomists claim is that the soul has a power which is independent of matter.  The human ability to reason goes beyond what matter can do.  Thus there is a power of the soul that doesn't depend on the body.  Since the forms aren't composed of parts, there are no parts that can break down, and thus the soul cannot die. 

OK, I think the part I'm having the most trouble with is understanding how are ability to reason is a power that matter cannot have.  That is it requires not just an everyday immaterial form, but a subsistent form.  Thomists already grant that animals can do amazing things without subsistent souls.  It's not obvious to me how an animal can be conscious without a subsistent soul, but apparently they can.  Why can't reasoning be similar?  Maybe we just cannot understand all the powers prime matter can take when given the proper form.  There does seem to be things humans can understand that cannot be captured by any arrangement of sense data.  I can understand that a married bachelor is impossible, but I cannot create any mental picture of that truth by arranging sense data with my imagination.   So this argument has some sense to it, but I don't really feel like I got it.  So any help would be appreciated.

I find this argument fascinating and it seems to have profound implications.  One consequence seems to be is that God must preform a miracle at the conception of every new human being.  This would destroy Hume's assumption that we only know miracles as very rare unlikely events.
 

Last edited by brian_g (7/12/2015 7:53 am)

 

7/13/2015 9:23 am  #2


Re: Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

There are (at least) three "levels" of awareness/consciousness.

(1) Sensation. An example is seeing a round or elliptical white patch, i.e., having an experience characterized by a white quale* of one of a certain range of shapes. Animals operate at this level. (So, arguably, might some plants, though probably not with visual qualia. It seems possible that some plants might experience e.g. smells, tastes, or pressures, though I'm not aware of any really good reason to think that they actually do.**)

(2) Perception. An example is experiencing that round or elliptical white patch as a disc-shaped physical object in three-dimensional space. Animals operate at this level too, and it does seem to involve forms in some way.

(3) Intellect. An example is recognizing the round white disc as the consecrated Host and understanding intellectually that it is in substance the body and blood*** of Christ. Here our intellect in some manner receives the "form" of that body and blood without our becoming them; if understanding were sufficient for that, we wouldn't have to consume the Host. I think it's obvious enough that animals don't operate at this level. (And please note that the example still works even for readers who don't believe in Transubstantiation. The ability to form the belief is sufficient for present purposes, even if, unlike me, someone doesn't think the belief is correct.)

I've deliberately chosen an extreme (indeed miraculous) example because I think it makes the point in the clearest possible way. Before continuing with an account of why this last level requires an immaterial intellect, I'm going to wait -- partly to allow brian_g to ask questions, partly to allow other posters to comment on any shortcomings in the example, and partly because I'm going to be busy this morning and part of the afternoon and I don't have time to extend this post much further.

----
* The singular of qualia, pronounced "qually," not "quail".

** If panspychism/panexperientialism is true, then there could even be such "raw feels" at the level of inanimate nature -- subatomic particles, say.

*** As (most) Catholics here will know but others may not, the teaching of the Church about the Eucharist is not that the Host is the body and the wine is the blood, but that each particle of either one is the entire body and blood.

Last edited by Scott (7/13/2015 4:12 pm)

 

7/13/2015 9:31 am  #3


Re: Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

Although it's a scholarly and somewhat technical paper, I found the following by Caleb Cohoe to be an excellent reconstruction and (partial) defense of the argument for the immateriality of the intellect:

http://philpapers.org/rec/COHWTI-2

 

7/13/2015 9:50 am  #4


Re: Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

Thanks for the link. That's helpful.

A good part of brian_g's question is why similar considerations don't apply to sensory perception even though, through such perception, non-rational animals seem to receive the forms of perceptual objects without thereby becoming those objects. And that really is a bit of a puzzlement; we've discussed it several times at length on Ed Feser's blog. (The best answer so far, I think, is that the perceptual process itself can't occur at all without a material organ like an eye or an ear.) The paper you've linked does seem to address that, though I don't have time at the moment to read it in its entirety.

Last edited by Scott (7/13/2015 9:53 am)

 

7/13/2015 10:36 am  #5


Re: Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

Scott,

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }I see that in the case of Transubstantiation that there is an understanding that cannot be produced from sense data alone.  There doesn't even seem to be a way to rearrange sense data through the imagination to produce an understanding of the doctrine.  We could go a step further and say that if we taught an animal a language where there was a one to one correspondence between certain symbols and sense data, that this language could never express the doctrine of Transubstantiation.  So what's the next step?

 

     Thread Starter
 

7/13/2015 4:28 pm  #6


Re: Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

brian_g wrote:

So what's the next step?

There are at least a couple of possible next steps.

(1) Aristotle's own, nicely described in the essay to which Heyzeus7 linked, is to argue that because the intellect can receive any form, it must not require a bodily organ, for any such organ would itself place a limit on the forms that could be received. I'd recommend a thorough reading of that essay to see whether it addresses your questions. If not, let us know what it's left unaddressed.

(2) Another is to argue that the intellect must be immaterial because thought is "determinate" in a specific sense in which the physical can't be. Ed Feser is the go-to guy on that argument; search his blog posts, and I recommend starting here. If you've already tackled Feser's arguments and you have questions about them (or if you do tackle them and you end up with some), I'd recommend posting the specific questions so that we can deal with manageable chunks.

(3) Yet a third would be to argue that the intellect can receive kinds of forms that bodily organs can't; I'm thinking here specifically of substantial forms, as contrasted with the accidental forms (colors, shapes, and so on) recerived via sensory perception. I don't offhand know where to look for development of this approach, but surely someone has devoted some attention to it (and it's surely hinted at in the linked essay and other similar sources); maybe other posters will know something on the subject that I don't.

I'm hoping to hear from other posters on this general topic anyway. I'm not new to it by any means, but I'm sure there are people better equipped to expound on it at length and in detail than I am.

Last edited by Scott (7/13/2015 4:54 pm)

 

7/13/2015 11:16 pm  #7


Re: Thomistic aguements for the immortality of the soul

So I've been thinking about this.  I want to consider a principle that either falls under the principle of proportionate causality or is at least a related principle.  Consider this.  There are two ways a cause can fail to produce its effect.  First, is that the active potency could be insufficient to bring about the effect.  Second, the passive potency in the object may insufficient to bring about the effect.  In the case of the arguments for the subsistence of the soul, it seems the claim must be the latter.  Prime mater doesn't have the passive potency to do have understanding of certain realities. 

Last edited by brian_g (7/13/2015 11:19 pm)

     Thread Starter
 

Board footera

 

Powered by Boardhost. Create a Free Forum