Soul, mind and body

Plato's ideas about the soul, mind and body

• He's a dualist -they're two separate entities
• Soul has the capacity to leave the physical body and move on after death, returning to the world of forms
• Life & death come from each other in an endless chain where souls are reborn
• Tripartite view of the soul - made of 3 parts - reason, appetite and emotion (example = 2 horses pulling a chariot, reason = charioteer, guiding and directing the horses of = appetite and emotion = to stop them running off wildly)
• In Meno, an uneducated person (slave boy) can still work out the answers to logic problems as their souls must have encountered ideas before birth in the world of forms 
• In the Myth of Er, Plato describes the immortality and rebirth of souls

Aristotle's ideas about the soul, mind and body

• Disagreed with Plato
• Thought the soul was a substance meaning 'essence' or 'real thing'
• Souls give a living thing its essence and the capabilities of living things constitute their souls - not distinct from body
• This soul gives bodily matter its form, efficiency and telos
• Analogy of the stamp - shape made when soft wax is pressed with a stamp, the shape is inseparable from the wax, as the soul is inseparable from the body

Substance dualism

• Mind & body = two separate things
• Body = material and has properties of extension (space and measurements) & mind/soul = immaterial and has…