• Walter B
    35
    I was reading over a book titled, "Philosophy demystified" and it presented this argument found in one of Plato's writings:

    P1. Look around you: nothing moves by itself.
    P2. Anything you see always needs another thing to move it.
    P3. Natural things are no different from human-made things in that they need to be moved by something else.
    P4. Just like anything else, the bodies of living things can’t move by themselves.
    Therefore, there has to be something else, other than the body, that moves a body, and this we can call a soul (or psyche in Greek).

    The author of the book then critiques this argument with this reply:

    "This argument can be critiqued by pointing out that, while it may be true that nothing moves by itself, we need not jump to the conclusion that there must be something wholly other than a part of the body (or something material in the bodily realm), like some soul, that is responsible for moving the body. Bodies can be broken down into parts, and when seen in this way, we can imagine one part of the body moving another part (or parts) of the body. Plato and many of the Greek philosophers did not seem to consider this as a viable option."

    What I am having difficulty understanding is how does the fact that the body is composed of parts (and may be moved by these parts) defeat the argument given by Plato?

    Wouldn't plato then reply by stating that premise 4 should be read as "the parts of living things can't move by themselves?" I don't mean to suggest that I believe Plato's argument is successful, but I just find it hard to see how introducing parts, or stating that a whole is composed of parts and that parts may be what moves the whole, defeats Plato's argument.

    If I were to rewrite Plato's argument to accommodate the relation between parts and wholes and the possibility that the parts move the whole, then this is what I think Plato would argue:

    Nothing can move by itself.
    If nothing can move by itself, then parts that compose wholes cannot move by itself.
    if parts that compose wholes cannot move by itself, then something else must be responsible for the movement of parts.

    All things that are moved, because of something else, are causally impotent.
    All things that are their own source of movemnent are causally potent.

    If that something else is moved by another something else, then the source of movement of such a sequence of movers is found in something that is its own source of movement.
    The body is not its own source of movement.
    Therefore, the body is moved by something that is its own source of movement.
    This is the soul.

    I am not a logician at all, and I figure that I presented this argument's logical structure poorly, but if any of you can try to interpret this argument, then I think that you can see that Plato would argue that parts aren't exempt from premise 1.

    However, the reason I think that Plato's argument fails (as it was presented in Philosphy demystified) is because premise 1 seems to contradict the conclusion. If nothing moves itself, then a soul can't move itself. So the soul's movement must be the product of some other thing and so on. Even if it is accepted that whatever is moved, because of something else, is itself causally impotent and whatever is its own source of movement is causally potent, we are left wondering if premise 1 is compatible with the notion that some things are their own source of motion. If somethings are their own source of motion, then it seems that some things can move by itself and premise 1 is false.

    Another issue with the argument is how it looks at causal relations. Why suppose that causal occurances are assymetrical relationships between a causally inert thing and a casually potent thing? Perhaps, causal occurances are between things of equal causal potency? Think of how paper and a comb are attracted to each other with static electricity or how magnets attrack each other or how the mass of two things affect each other as examples of how, in nature, there doesn't seem parts of reality that are causally inert and other parts that are causally potent.

    Or perhaps movement occurs as the result of the way that thing X affects thing Y and how thing Y affects thing X? So we can agree that no single thing can move itself, but it does not follow that because no single thing can move itself, that the collection of individual things must be moved by something that is not contained within the set of individual things. In this case, movement occurs because individual things move each other simultaneously and we are still able to agree that nothing moves itself.

    Again, I don't want to argue that the alternatives I give of how movement occurs is correct, but it seem to me that there are other reasons for why one would be skeptical of Plato's argument that go beyond the way that parts and wholes affect each other.

    I welcome any one that can help me understand why the parts/wholes reply would defeat the argument and for any help with understand if premise 1 is compatible with the soul being responsible for the movement of the body without itself being moved by something else.
  • OmniscientNihilist
    171
    Therefore, there has to be something else, other than the body, that moves a body, and this we can call a soulWalter B

    what moves the soul?

    human body is moved by sense data triggering mind which triggers stored energy
  • Walter B
    35

    It really doesn't matter since nothing moves itself (according to premise 1).
    So whatever moves the body, soul or not, must itself be moved by something else.
  • OmniscientNihilist
    171
    must itself be moved by something else.Walter B

    its an eternal circle
  • OmniscientNihilist
    171
    What do you mean?Walter B

    existence is an eternal circle of cause and effect. a perpetual motion machine.

    because there is nothing outside it to stop it or start it
  • Walter B
    35
    ok, i see what you are arguing.
  • OmniscientNihilist
    171
    ok, i see what you are arguingWalter B

    everything within reality has a starting point, but reality itself cannot
  • Walter B
    35
    Right, the fallacy of composition. But i don't see what that has to do with Plato's argument for the soul being what moves the body.
  • OmniscientNihilist
    171
    Plato's argument for the soul being what moves the body.Walter B

    its an illusion that i am a soul with free will inside, and controlling, a body

    yet this is what most people believe

    its the ignorant naive view of self
  • OmniscientNihilist
    171
    soul and god are basically just old words for consciousness
  • unforeseen
    35
    They failed to understand the concept of chemical energy. Directed by instructions in the form of electrical energy from the central nervous system. And who can blame them? Those were some primitive times.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k
    Bodies can be broken down into parts, and when seen in this way, we can imagine one part of the body moving another part (or parts) of the body. Plato and many of the Greek philosophers did not seem to consider this as a viable option."Walter B

    This is not correct. Read Plato's Parmenides and then read Aristotle's On the Soul. The recognition that different parts were listening to their own drummer is one of the driving forces of Greek thought.
    That all these discordant elements would agree to be a part of something else is the issue.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    When you want to scratch your nose, you don't say, 'hey, finger, scratch nose.' Nor does your nose transfer its 'having been scratched' back to the mind via the finger. This is actually as aspect of the 'subjective unity of consciousness', and it's a matter for which there is no real scientific account.
  • Walter B
    35
    What do you mean by
    The recognition that different parts were listening to their own drummer is one of the driving forces of Greek thought.Valentinus

    What do you mean when you say that different parts were listening to their own drummer? I guess I don't understand what you mean by "their own drummer."
  • Walter B
    35


    I agree that there is no such sequence as described:

    When you want to scratch your nose, you don't say, 'hey, finger, scratch nose.Wayfarer

    I think that what you are trying to imply here does not necessarily follow from the information given:
    Nor does your nose transfer its 'having been scratched' back to the mind via the finger.Wayfarer

    If you were blindfolded, and someone scratched your nose, then you will the sensation of your nose being scratch and the sensation will inform you that your nose was scratched. While it seems correct that the nose does not transfer "its having been scratched" back to the mind by the finger, it seems possible that some other part of the body is responsible for this transfer of knowledge.

    This is actually as aspect of the 'subjective unity of consciousness', and it's a matter for which there is no real scientific account.Wayfarer

    So far you presented an argument regarding how we experience sensations and how we don't experience them and I guess you are drawing metaphysical conclusions from those experiences. I think that there are still ways that can also account for those experiences from a scientific world view. For example, I never feel a sequence, such as, commanding my heart to beat and then my heart beating, but it would be a mistake to conclude that my heart beats without any input from my brain. Thus, simply experiencing or not experiencing sensations does not help determine what is under the command of brain states or not. In the end, I don't want to argue that you are wrong simply because there are other possible explanations, but it seems that more arguments are needed before we can come to metaphysical conclusions about these things.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    When you get to Aristotle's On the Soul, you will note that each kind of sensation that leads to perception is related to a particular exchange. Touch is felt as touch through whatever allows us to sense tangible things that way. Aristotle calls it the primary sense of mobile life forms.
    Hearing is a process where sounds being made are heard by the individual as sounds being made.The ears are involved. But something other than the obvious instrument turns these feelings into information about what is happening.
    Sight is something going on with the eyes. How that turns into perception of the visible is recognized as a process of its own.
    Each of the senses has its own processes in addition to the world of convergence that allows the perceiver to recognize what is there before them in the moment of being alive with other things.
  • Walter B
    35
    hearing is a process where sounds being made are heard by the individual as sounds being made.Valentinus

    But something other than the obvious instrument turns these feelings into information about what is happening.Valentinus

    When a dog barks, there are waves that are produced that enter the ear canal and the respective parts that are part of whatever allows one to hear. So I think the first quote isn't controversial, but the second quote states that "something other than the obvious instrument turns these feelings into information." Even if it is the case that the ear is not responsible for the recognition that noise was produced, which I agree with you, why should it follow that there is something that is not of the body that is referred to as the perceiver that is responsible for the recognition that noise was made? It seems that sense data is compatible with physicalism and I am not sure why these facts would be brought up by Aristotle.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    So far you presented an argument regarding how we experience sensations and how we don't experience them and I guess you are drawing metaphysical conclusions from those experiences. I think that there are still ways that can also account for those experiences from a scientific world view. For example, I never feel a sequence, such as, commanding my heart to beat and then my heart beating, but it would be a mistake to conclude that my heart beats without any input from my brain. Thus, simply experiencing or not experiencing sensations does not help determine what is under the command of brain states or not. In the end, I don't want to argue that you are wrong simply because there are other possible explanations, but it seems that more arguments are needed before we can come to metaphysical conclusions about these things.Walter B

    Not so much an argument, as a couple of observations.

    The autonomic or parasympathetic nervous system is generally not under conscious control, although yogis have demonstrated extraordinary abilities to exert control over these faculties (i.e. by being entombed in coffins for long periods of time and emerging alive when by all expectations they should have died.)

    However, the point about the subjective unity of consciousness is another matter altogether - and there really is no scientific account of it, as by its nature, it's a subjective matter. Please have a look at this post which provides a tentative explanation for how to conceive of the nature of the soul with reference to a current scientific paper.

    There's another point which comes to mind as well. There was a very well-known Canadian neurosurgoen, name Wilder Penfield, who pioneered many modern forms of brain surgery in the 20th Century. He used to conduct brain operations on conscious patients, as the brain itself has no pain sensors. He found that by stimulating certain areas of the brain, all kinds of sensations and even memories could be elicited, which the subjects would experience very vividly. But he also found that the subjects were aware of when these were being elicited by the surgeon's operations, rather than by their own intentions. 'You're doing that', they would say. This led Penfield, a sober scientist, to ultimately arrive at a somewhat dualist philosophy of mind. (This case is often quoted in arguments against reductionism, and has been the subject of much commentary.)
  • Walter B
    35
    If the brain surgeon stimulated those memories by natural physical processes, which were seemingly located in the brain, then I don't see how this experiment lends itself to any form of dualism. Can you explain what was his reasoning for dualism?
  • Walter B
    35
    This answer will differ for different philosophical perspectives, but I don't think that this is relevant yet since noting that functioning ears are a necessary condition for the perception of noise and not a sufficient condition doesn't get Aristotle to his conclusion that the perceiver is the soul. In any case, I think we are very off topic!
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    Well, your original OP challenged the reader with the idea that "Greek" thinkers (many of whom disagreed with each other strongly) did not understand that parts of living things had their own processes apart from whatever made whole organisms operate. So on that point. my point has been amply made. Many of the "Greeks" talked about it precisely upon this criteria.
    As to what Aristotle concludes regarding the "soul" as a perceiver, the work starts as distinguishing dead stuff from alive stuff on the basis that living things have to relate to other beings whereas dead stuff doesn't care what is beyond themselves.
  • Walter B
    35
    Well, your original OP challenged the reader with the idea that "Greek" thinkers (many of whom disagreed with each other strongly) did not understand that parts of living things had their own processes apart from whatever made whole organisms operateValentinus

    Right, the author made that claim, but I didn't ask if this statement on the Greek philosophers was correct. I was interested in knowing if his proposed critique of Plato's argument had any merit.

    So on that point. my point has been amply madeValentinus
    Yes, amply made, yet not on topic, but still interesting and I appreciate it anyway!
  • Valentinus
    1.6k
    I disagree with the critique because it simply misrepresents what those philosophers said.
    So, in that regard, it has little merit.
    As a starting point to discuss what is missing from said thinkers, it offers possibilities. But starting with an incorrect perception kills my groove.
  • Walter B
    35
    Would you say that the author presents Plato's argument incorrectly?
    Or only that his blanket statement on the Greek philosophers was wrong?
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    If the brain surgeon stimulated those memories by natural physical processes, which were seemingly located in the brain, then I don't see how this experiment lends itself to any form of dualism. Can you explain what was his reasoning for dualism?Walter B

    Because the subjects could clearly tell when the memories and sensations arose as a consequence of the surgeon's activities. They would say 'you're doing that'.
  • Walter B
    35
    This still seems compatible with physicalism but I don't feel like going after this tangent right now.
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