The more I study Thomistic philosophy considered in the light of modern psychology and neuroscience, the more troubled I am by the encroachment of science on the traditional idea of the soul. But these insights are real, and the more I understand about them, the more I find the traditional Thomistic and Aristotelian formulae inadequate. Under Aristotelian and Thomistic accounts of the soul dominant in the Catholic Church, the soul is the seat of reason and the intellect, as well as the animating principle of the entire unified person (including the body). The soul is evident and coextensive with the body in this account–it is its “formal cause,” from which any person or thing is by definition inseparable–but the soul is also deemed immaterial, permanent, and the reason we have the potential of eternal life.
Neuroscience has begun to demonstrate that a variety of matters traditionally thought to lay outside the realm of purely material explanation–will, decision-making, personality, moral reasoning, imagination–in fact have strong components in the brain itself, where specific areas “light up” when certain kinds of decisions are made or feelings are felt. Injuries to certain areas of the brain–like the frontal lobes–can yield irrational behavior traditionally thought of as immoral. Finally, the dramatic effects of psychopharmaceuticals in manipulating behavior suggest that we may really be much more determined materially than traditional Christian theology would suggest.
I’m very much in the infancy of my consideration of this topic. My usual bailiwick is the lower, but more solid, ground of moral and political philosophy. Yet to consider any of these issues, metaphysics is always lurking in the background. What do we know? What is a brain? A mind? A soul? And how do we know this? Are these philosophical insights real or simply the imposition of the unprovable ideas of the author? If you think about this only for a moment, it’s plainly a real problem the resolution of which leads to practical consequences. I found this essay, as well as this quite useful, along with this book review by Bryan Appleyard, and finally this discussion that includes a useful precis of Thomistic accounts of the soul. I also began a discussion here and participated in one here over at Catholic Answers, but so far, as I feared, the Thomistic account brought to bear by my interlocutors amounts to the simulation of philosophy, the mere repetition of Thomistic formulae without any means of demonstrating why it is true to someone not already steeped in either the Greek or the Catholic tradition.
I’d appreciate any insights. But my provisional view is that Thomistic accounts of the soul rely on Aristotelian metaphysics, which in turn relies on now partially-discredited Aristotelian physics. Truth does not contradict truth, so a revised account of Catholic theology of the soul, based on the insights of modern neuroscience and science in general, is essential so that we do not fall prey to a coarse and inadequate materialism. This alternative would truly be, as C.S. Lewis warned, The Abolition of Man. I am not convinced this project would be doomed, not least because certain aspects of the soul, in particular language and self-consciousness, so far defy explanations of a localized and material source in the same manner as the senses or even certain kinds of emotions. In response, materialists and scientists will say, of course, we just haven’t explained these gaps yet. But that wouldn’t be a scientific judgment, would it?
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The body is the mechanism through which the soul operates. Human beings are endowed with a rational soul by virtue of their humanity;however, the operations of the soul can be prevented by illness, deformity, etc.. Without this conception of the soul we are merely another, fancier species of animal with no moral responsibility for our acts. We would lack free will, the necessary component of a moral nature.
You are turning over a rock; you may find disturbing what lies underneath.
The more I ponder free will, the less convinced I am that it actually means anything. This is, on the one hand, a disturbing possibility, and on the other, consoling.
Animals often behave with a cruelty, an ignorance, and an indifference that we would (and do) find horrifying in our fellow men. But perhaps they (our fellow men) also simply find themselves in a given situation, and have no choice other than to obey the dictates and impulses of their nature. How can this be consoling?
“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”
Chris, seems to me you’re operating in the hope of finding what Gilbert Ryle called The Ghost in the Machine. As one wit remarked: My problem is not with the ghost; it’s the machine I have trouble believing in.
To overcome this Cartesian dualism, I recommend Sartre’s Being & Nothingness. Though Sartre was, of course, a good atheist, his philosophy rested on sound theological suppositions.
Men under torture do immoral things. Atering the brains ismply alters the stimuli more directly. So long as consciousness exists though, there is still choice. Man or Satan or any cnscious actor can cut away from God’s creation and torture it inot somethign worse, but of the choices perceived, there is always a choice.
J Pedersen showed that the (OT) Biblical notion of the person is wholistic.
Our thoughts, feelings, physiology and sense of purpose (spirit in my view) all influence each other in a complex way we are yet to understand.
Brain science is still incredibly crass. Eg the stuff on lesions leading to conclusions about its functions. I lose my big toe – this interferes with my balance; therefore my big toe is my balance centre. So much of it really is this crass (however fancy the methodology). I also point out (as honoured in the theory of science but so rarely in its practice) that correlation is not causation.
For me the ground to begin the re-formulation from is wholistic – the physical is real and valid (far a religion founded on the incarnation this shouldn’t be too much of a stretch – but often seems to be!)
A few thoughts.
First, this line of study is potentially disturbing and does threaten the traditional notion of free will. I don’t think it’s the end of the world, though. Christians have always believed in the influence of both grace and the “law of the flesh” on free will. In other words, habit, vice, temptation, physical passion, immaturity, lack of intelligence and reflectino, and all the rest have always been known to influence free will, and modern neuroscience is confirming this. The question is whteher what we subjectively perceive to be free will is in fact just one more passion in a series. (Hobbes, incidentally, was way ahead of his time in this regard calling the will merely the “last passion.”)
I do agree that some of the brain science is crass, unimaginitive, and far two interested in single cause explanations. Scientists, like everyone, sometimes have trouble with non-reductive complexity. So, if consciousness can’t be located anywhere in particular in the brain, they’ll deny it exists, or ascribe it to some part of the brain that always light up under the PET scan. Similarly, though correlation is not causation, it’s all scientists mostly have and they don’t worry too much about it, using cause in the sense of “regularly re-occurring.” It’s the nonmetaphysical metaphysics of Bacon and Hume.
Wouldn’t it be pretty ironic if there was no free will, but we could still spend so much energy and passion arguing about its existence, which in itself requires us to take a position?
It seems to me unlikely that if we are actually pre-programmed automatons just along for the ride, that we would spend much time debating issues like this. Of course some people don’t give a fig. Or should I say that some people can’t give a fig?