Final Essay

Throughout this semester I have learned about several different philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, along with their varied views on souls. It is thought that a soul is a spiritual or philosophical view of an individual that gives life to the body and enables one’s conscience to live on after death. However, I am concerned with many un-answered questions that weigh down this particular viewpoint. Are we the only species with a soul? Are souls physical or simply spiritual, and why? Many believe that souls help contribute to our emotional nature and give us the ability to be kind or feel sympathetic towards one another. For me, it is hard to accept the idea that my inner self will live on without my body after physical death.

Learning from Socrates, Plato has given the definition of the psyche as the internal essence of a person. This is also what accounts as our soul or spirit. Plato believes that this determines how we will behave towards others. Socrates on the other hands states that even after death, the soul will continue to exist. Socrates and Plato agree that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn in subsequent bodies. (Citation) However, Plato concluded that there are three parts to the soul and only one part of the soul is actually immortal, this specific part is referred to as logos. Plato’s theory states that this one part deals with our mind and reason. Another part is thymos, which refers to our emotions. The third and final part is Eros, and this deals with one’s desires. In my opinion, their theories make little to no sense. With minuscule amounts evidence or reason, they have manipulated this theory to make it sound like a logical belief, it is simply

Following Aristotle and Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas understood the soul to be the first actuality of the living body. Aquinas distinguished three orders of life: plants, which feed and grow; animals, which add sensation to the operations of plants; and humans, which add intellect to the operations of animals. (citation) Concerning the human soul, his theory stated that the soul does not have to rely on a body organ, and can, therefore, exist without a body. Furthermore, he states that a soul cannot be destroyed. Immanuel Kant, on the other hand, identifies the soul as the "I" in the sense that the existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved.(Citation) Aquinas's theory reminded me much of Plato's, wherein they both make no sense and just prance around their different