Presented December 2009
Dr. Rami Gabriel
The Mind and the Soul
In modern psychology and philosophy, the concept soul has largely been replaced
by the concept mind, but does the concept mind fulfill the same role as the concept soul?
The purpose of this paper is to answer this question.
What is the soul? In the Western tradition, it refers to a specific metaphysical
concept conceived by Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, St Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St.
Paul, and the Scholastics, refers to:
a) Processes of the mind (or, rational thought), and
b) A vehicle for the transcendence of death into afterlife.
Although the concept mind has replaced the concept soul in modern psychology
and philosophy, the concept mind fulfills the first part of the definition of soul without
fulfilling the second transcendent part of the definition. My broader goal in this paper is
to explain why this disjunction between mind and soul has proved sufficient in
contemporary Western society. The key element in this story is role of explanation,
which in contemporary Western society is tied to science as the path to understanding
Nature, this stands in contrast to the role explanation plays in cultures where science is
not the dominant form of understanding nature.
Soul vs. Mind
In psychology and philosophy mind refers to how thought works – it represents the
processes and structure of thought. For a simple definition, mind is the causal nexus of
human behavior and the location of thought, memory, and emotion. Mind does not have
the additional connotation of serving as a possible vehicle for the transcendence of death.
To put this discussion in the context of Ancient philosophy we must examine
Aristotle’s model of the soul as a set of abilities. Aristotle claimed that humans possess
an intellectual soul, which corresponds to the ability to think practically and theoretically
(i.e. rationally), a sensitive soul, which corresponds to the ability to perceive, to move to
imagine and to desire. Humans also possess a vegetative soul, which corresponds to the
abilities of nutrition and reproduction.
Aristotle’s view is mirrored in our contemporary model of mind as a set of
processes, or abilities. The term mind for contemporary psychologists and philosophers
means the same thing that soul meant for Aristotle with one exception that I discuss
below. The mind, brain, and body for modern psychologists are the places where all the
abilities Aristotle described take place. The vegetative soul is now thought of as the parts
of the body that make nutrition and reproduction possible; more specifically, our drive for
nutrition stems from subcortical processes that signal hunger, likewise the desire to
reproduce is a feature of subcortical processes and hormonal chemical signals. The
sensitive soul is the function of the primary perceptual areas across the brain (for
example, the primary processing area for audition is the temporal lobe; touch in the
parietal lobe; vision in the occipital lobe; smell in the inferior sulcus, and taste in the
tongue and subcortical areas). Furthermore, locomotion is a process taking place in the
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Presented December 2009
Dr. Rami Gabriel
body (including spinal cord innervations of the muscles), in the world, and in the frontal
lobe and cerebellum. Imagination and desire are vague and general processes that refer to
a whole host of mindbrain processes. Finally, the intellectual soul remains central in
distinguishing the human mind from other minds. Nevertheless, the processes that
underlie the intellectual soul are currently considered a standard, if more complex and
less easily explained, part of brain function. Whereas in the past, this rational element of
the human being was used as proof of a divine hand and transcendental purpose. In sum,
contemporary psychology has located the functions of the soul in the mind, and the mind
in the brain. Maybe in fifty years someone will write a paper about how the concept brain
has replaced the concept mind, but we are not yet at that point; currently, mind in
common parlance also refers to mental capacities that are not yet adequately described as
elements of the brain.
This leaves the second part of the definition of soul, namely, vehicle for the
transcendence of death, outside the concept of mind; this is a significant difference
between Aristotle and the contemporary concept of mind. To summarize, mind parallels
soul (at least as understood by Aristotle) except for in its metaphysical qualities, i.e. in its
role as a vehicle to transcend death (which is derived from Plato’s psyche, which grasps
Forms in pre and post terrestrial life, and the subsequent Judeo-Christian model of the
soul).
Where did the metaphysical quality go?
To answer this question, it will serve us well to discuss the respective contexts
within which the terms soul and mind have importance, in this way we can better
understand the function each concept fulfills. The main claim I explain in this section is,
the concept soul attained its exalted explanatory position in a culture where explanation
served a different role than it does now.
Explanation
What is the function of a concept within an explanatory framework? A concept (for
example, cat, ball) is a constellation of ideas. In science, concepts are created and used to
explain phenomena. For example, the concept gravity was created to explain why we are
not floating into space, or why every time you throw your heart into the sky it lands on
the ground. Gravity is a scientific concept that consists of many parts: mathematical
constants and formulas, counterfactuals, and plain language statements like “what comes
up must come down,” etc.
Within science, in its pragmatic aspect, explanation refers to facts in the form of
cause and effect processes, classification systems, laws, data, observations of empirical
tests, etc.1 That is, a concept explains by pointing to, or summarizing, evidence that,
when concatenated, aims towards a systematic understanding of a phenomena.
Furthermore, this accumulated understanding of the phenomena can thereafter be
1
My comments refer to applied science, which I call pragmatic science, as opposed to
pure science wherein the goal is an abstract search for truth.
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Presented December 2009
Dr. Rami Gabriel
harnessed towards technological innovation – science burns bright with the hope of
technological ascendance. We live in an age when the scientific portrayal of reality is
dominant; our pre-eminent mode of explanation is evidence-based, systematic, and
buoyed by technological advancements. The ostensible purpose of technology is to make
life easier. Therefore, the purpose of explanation in the sciences is discovering facts and
subsequently elaborating upon these facts through technology (for example, machines,
pharmaceutical drugs, AC units) towards making life easier or more pleasurable through
alleviating or simplifying tasks and problems.
Turning to our subject of focus, the purpose of explaining how thought works in
the age of science is to create a body of facts towards understanding how we can better
know and control the physical form that we are with the hope of prolonging and
ameliorating life. In this case, explanation in the age of pragmatic science resides under
the frame of Naturalism – scientific explanations are about natural phenomena.
The forms knowledge took before science was the dominant way of
understanding Nature are not that different, with one major exception. Just as we use
technological innovations made possible by scientific explanations to make life easier,
“non-scientific” cultures also use explanation to make life easier. For example, religion as
a set of explanatory concepts gives meaning to life and anticipates the rewards of the
afterlife. In this case, explanation is tied to faith whose technology is theology, or
eschatology – the intricately worked-out social, cultural, and practical framework that
supported and extended the concept of soul into many aspects of life. In other words,
eschatology is the technology of “non-scientific” times.
The purpose of explaining how thought works in “non-scientific” cultures with
the concept soul is deeply tied to faith in the supernatural. In the case of the soul, the
supernatural is the intellectual soul (i.e. rationality), a uniquely human process. The
intellectual soul as the supernatural part of the human being was linked to immortality,
the transcendence of death. The technology of faith is theology, a systematic explanation
of how and why one’s life can be lived in a better way and how one’s behavior can lead
to a more satisfactory afterlife. Explanation in non-scientific terms may use supernatural
entities; faith is not tied to natural phenomena in the same way as scientific explanation.
As a means of comparison, let’s look at how the two variants of explanation
explain death. In “non-scientific” cultures, as faith, explanation creates a structure (i.e. a
theological technology) to organize our hopes of transcending death through supernatural
phenomena (i.e. the soul and communication with a divinity). In scientific cultures, as
fact, explanation creates a pragmatic technological structure to organize our hopes of
staving off death through understanding and engineering of natural phenomena (i.e. the
brain). The reason the concept mind does not contain metaphysical qualities is, it’s
explanatory role in a scientific culture is fact-based and naturalist rather than faith-based
and open to supernatural processes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the function of the explanation of the mind in its contemporary
context is to ameliorate and adjust our quality of life (i.e. our soul; the functioning of the
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Presented December 2009
Dr. Rami Gabriel
processes of the mind) through technology. One example of this is the use of prescription
medication like Prozac, Zoloft, and Lithium. These medications are a product of our use
of the scientific understanding of the mind to engineer technology that modifies the
mindbrain. There are also non-chemical methods to modify the mind that have become
available through a naturalist explanation of thought, for example, cognitive behavioral
therapy. In contemporary times, fact – and its elaboration through technology in a
naturalist framework – is the explanatory purpose of the concept mind. In non-scientific
times, faith – and its elaboration through eschatological systems in a supernatural
framework – is the explanatory purpose of the concept soul.
Can Mind replace Soul?
If in fact the concept mind has replaced the concept soul, are we ready to trade the
explanatory role that faith fulfilled for the explanatory role that fact fulfills? That is, are
we ready to lose the possibility of using what mind and soul both refer to, i.e. thought, as
a passport into the afterlife? Is this our responsibility as citizens of a scientific world? Or,
is fact simply another form of faith, and will explanation always need a supernatural
dimension to satisfy the human heart?
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