Lets start with the most common dictionary definitions:
soul n.
1. The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
2. The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
3. The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
4. A human: "the homes of some nine hundred souls" (Garrison Keillor).
5. The central or integral part; the vital core: "It saddens me that this network ... may lose its soul, which is after all the quest for news" (Marvin Kalb).
6. A person considered as the perfect embodiment of an intangible quality; a personification: I am the very soul of discretion.
7. A person's emotional or moral nature: "An actor is ... often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not" (Alec Guinness).
8. A sense of ethnic pride among Black people and especially African Americans, expressed in areas such as language, social customs, religion, and music.
9. A strong, deeply felt emotion conveyed by a speaker, a performer, or an artist.
10. Soul music.
Then we can have a look at what Aristotle thinks:
Aristotle, On The Soul, Lecture 3:
The Definition of the Soul and Its Faculties
De Anima II.1
Living being natural substances, as natural composite of form and matter
Form: soul, matter: body
1) Soul is form of body having life
Distinguishes body a) from matter of other natural, non-living
substance, and b) from corpse
2) Soul is actuality of body potentially having life
Soul is what gives body life; body only has life insofar as it has
soul
3) Soul is first actuality of body potentially having life
First actuality: having knowledge; second actuality using
knowledge
Soul first actuality since also the sleeping have a soul.
4) Soul is first actuality of a body with instruments (organa) potentially
having life
As instrumental, body is for the sake of soul (later: soul is final
cause of body)
Puzzle: how can soul both be actuality of body and user of body as
instrument?
4) most common definition of soul (though see warning against
common definition)
Implications:
i) As form and matter, actuality and potentiality of the same thing, soul
and body are one.
ii) Part-whole analogy: the soul as a whole stands to the body as a whole,
in the way that the parts of the soul stand to the parts of the body.
'if the eye was an animal, sight would be its soul' (412b18-19)
Characterisation of Hylomorphism ('matter-form-ism'):
Soul and body inseparable (contra dualism), soul irreducible to body
(contra materialism), characteristics of body determined by soul (contra
epiphenomenalism, dual aspect theory)
And it goes on and on..
In short this is a term very much used and missused.
I have noticed that many people who use it very often have very little understanding of this term.
I am not the exception.
In my life I have read many books. Scientific, philosophical, esotherical, religious. I have walked through the jungle of New Age and encountered some very strange beasts. Met many selfproclaimed profets, even chanellers of God personally and some demiurgs too.
They all talk of soul all the time, yet nobody managed to shed some light on what sould realy is, to explain at least essential parts of the whole concept.
When I start thinking about the whole subject I always end up in a dead end.
Okay I can understand that the Spirit is universal consciousnes, part of God, or to be more precise Creator. I can also understand that spirit has many particles and that each particle incarnated presents the soul.
But this is where it becomes difficult - how does soul relate to our mind? Where does soul stop and mind begins? How are emotions related to the soul?
What is really mind then. If you eliminate mind can you or how can you be conscious?
What is conscousness...
Well in any case I would like to hear what is your understanding of this concept.
soul n.
1. The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
2. The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
3. The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
4. A human: "the homes of some nine hundred souls" (Garrison Keillor).
5. The central or integral part; the vital core: "It saddens me that this network ... may lose its soul, which is after all the quest for news" (Marvin Kalb).
6. A person considered as the perfect embodiment of an intangible quality; a personification: I am the very soul of discretion.
7. A person's emotional or moral nature: "An actor is ... often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not" (Alec Guinness).
8. A sense of ethnic pride among Black people and especially African Americans, expressed in areas such as language, social customs, religion, and music.
9. A strong, deeply felt emotion conveyed by a speaker, a performer, or an artist.
10. Soul music.
Then we can have a look at what Aristotle thinks:
Aristotle, On The Soul, Lecture 3:
The Definition of the Soul and Its Faculties
De Anima II.1
Living being natural substances, as natural composite of form and matter
Form: soul, matter: body
1) Soul is form of body having life
Distinguishes body a) from matter of other natural, non-living
substance, and b) from corpse
2) Soul is actuality of body potentially having life
Soul is what gives body life; body only has life insofar as it has
soul
3) Soul is first actuality of body potentially having life
First actuality: having knowledge; second actuality using
knowledge
Soul first actuality since also the sleeping have a soul.
4) Soul is first actuality of a body with instruments (organa) potentially
having life
As instrumental, body is for the sake of soul (later: soul is final
cause of body)
Puzzle: how can soul both be actuality of body and user of body as
instrument?
4) most common definition of soul (though see warning against
common definition)
Implications:
i) As form and matter, actuality and potentiality of the same thing, soul
and body are one.
ii) Part-whole analogy: the soul as a whole stands to the body as a whole,
in the way that the parts of the soul stand to the parts of the body.
'if the eye was an animal, sight would be its soul' (412b18-19)
Characterisation of Hylomorphism ('matter-form-ism'):
Soul and body inseparable (contra dualism), soul irreducible to body
(contra materialism), characteristics of body determined by soul (contra
epiphenomenalism, dual aspect theory)
And it goes on and on..
In short this is a term very much used and missused.
I have noticed that many people who use it very often have very little understanding of this term.
I am not the exception.
In my life I have read many books. Scientific, philosophical, esotherical, religious. I have walked through the jungle of New Age and encountered some very strange beasts. Met many selfproclaimed profets, even chanellers of God personally and some demiurgs too.
They all talk of soul all the time, yet nobody managed to shed some light on what sould realy is, to explain at least essential parts of the whole concept.
When I start thinking about the whole subject I always end up in a dead end.
Okay I can understand that the Spirit is universal consciousnes, part of God, or to be more precise Creator. I can also understand that spirit has many particles and that each particle incarnated presents the soul.
But this is where it becomes difficult - how does soul relate to our mind? Where does soul stop and mind begins? How are emotions related to the soul?
What is really mind then. If you eliminate mind can you or how can you be conscious?
What is conscousness...
Well in any case I would like to hear what is your understanding of this concept.
