Notes for 3/9/2026

 3/9/2026
[Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")]
[Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408]

Do you believe animals have souls?
 
History of the concept of the soul

What is the soul supposed to do?

2 primary functions concepts of soul were intended to perform:

-    Explain life (difference between living and non-living things) = vitalism (soul = principle of life): something needs to be added to a body to have life
-    Explain cognition/consciousness/reason/self

Today, no one in the sciences accepts vitalism

The view that the soul explains (or is need to explain cognition) is now generally called “dualism”

Rene Descartes argues that the mind/soul is a distinct substance from the body (and can exist without it):
-    Substance dualism
-    Interactionist dualism
-    Cartesian dualism
-    Mind-body dualism

What are the arguments for mind-body dualism?

Main type of argument:

Argument from divergent properties:

1.    The mind has properties that the body doesn’t have (or vice versa), i.e., they have divergent properties.
2.    If x and y have divergent properties, then x and y can’t be the same.
3.    Therefore, the mind is not the same as the body.

Example: Divisibility




Shift from mechanics to function

The discovery of the electro-chemical nature of the brain shifts focus away from mechanics

The invention of electronic computing (electro-mechanical switches)
A neuron and the basic components of computers work in the same basic way: 
Computers are based on on-off switches
Brains are based on firing-nonfiring neurons

What is the mind?

Dualism (substance dualism): mind = a non-physical entity (=soul) that associates with the body/brain but is distinct from it

Main arguments for dualism:
-    Divergent properties arguments (minds and brains/bodies have divergent properties)
-    Appeal to religious belief (non-rational)
-    Appeal to paranormal experiences

Identity theory: mind = functioning brain, or rather, every mental state JUST IS a brain state
-    Progress in brain science

Functionalism: mind is a function of a brain or analogous information-processing system
(“The mind is what the brain does.” – Marvin Minsky)
-    Thought experiments (multiple-realizability: aliens, individual variation in brain architecture)
-    Progress in artificial intelligence

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