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Single Idea 13275

[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind ]

Full Idea

We should not enquire whether the soul and the body are one thing, any more than whether the wax and its imprint are, or in general whether the matter of each thing is one with that of which it is the matter.

Gist of Idea

The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax

Source

Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412b06)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'De Anima (On the Soul)', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,H.C. [Penguin 1986], p.157

A Reaction

This is his hylomorphist view of objects, so that the soul is the 'form' which bestows identity (and power) on the matter of which it is made. This remark is thoroughly physicalist.

The 39 ideas with the same theme [mind is entirely physical in composition]:

24042 The older Diogenes said the soul is air, made of the smallest particles [Diogenes of Apollonia]
23217 All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
20913 Democritus says the soul is the body, and thinking is thus the mixture of the body [Democritus, by Theophrastus]
24041 Democritus says spherical atoms are fire, and constitute the soul [psuche] [Democritus, by Aristotle]
13275 The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax [Aristotle]
20831 The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes]
5719 The mind moves limbs, wakes the body up, changes facial expressions, which involve touch [Lucretius]
5724 Lions, foxes and deer have distinct characters because their minds share in their bodies [Lucretius]
23220 The brain contains memory and reason, and is the source of sensation and decision [Galen]
16618 Intellectual and moral states, and even the soul itself, depend on prime matter for their existence [Blasius, by Pasnau]
2948 Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being [Hobbes]
6208 Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes]
23221 The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish]
4834 Mind and body are the same thing, sometimes seen as thought, and sometimes as extension [Spinoza]
7652 Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie]
19573 The seat of the soul is where our inner and outer worlds interpenetrate [Novalis]
5329 Why shouldn't we say brain depends on mind? Better explanation! [Ayer]
7431 The identity of mental states with physical properties is contingent, because the laws of nature are contingent [Armstrong]
5797 The pattern of molecules in the sea is much more complex than the complexity of brain neurons [Searle]
7430 Kripke assumes that mind-brain identity designates rigidly, which it doesn't [Armstrong on Kripke]
6976 In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson]
3374 Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties [Kim]
7445 The application of 'pain' to physical states is non-rigid and contingent [Lewis]
3994 Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis]
8579 Psychophysical identity implies the possibility of idealism or panpsychism [Lewis]
4879 There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett]
2468 Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor]
2464 Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor]
3515 Knowing what it is like to be something only involves being (physically) that thing [Papineau]
7892 The completeness of physics is needed for mind-brain identity [Papineau]
6544 Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan]
6503 Physicalism cannot allow internal intentional objects, as brain states can't be 'about' anything [Robinson,H]
4075 Identity theory is either of particular events, or of properties, depending on your theory of causation [Crane]
4085 Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution [Crane]
6634 Physicalists must believe in narrow content (because thoughts are merely the brain states) [Lowe]
6380 Identity theory says consciousness is an abstraction: a state, event, process or property [Polger]
20656 Traditional ideas of the mind were weakened in the 1950s by mind-influencing drugs [Watson]
11142 Body-type seems to affect a mind's cognition and conceptual scheme [Margolis/Laurence]
17766 Physicalism correlates brain and mind, explains causation by thought, and makes nature continuous [Bayne]