The soul has existed prior to being in the present body and, on death, will leave the body. The soul is on a higher level of reality than the body, being immortal with understanding of the realm of ideas. The body is concerned with the senses, the soul with reason. The soul is not always perfect however, the body corrupts it and drags it down. Humans have the task of taking care of the soul but is easily corrupted.
The concept of death is, needless to say, difficult for anyone to grasp. Arguing over whether death is a positive or negative thing is perhaps even more difficult. The philosophers Thomas Nagel and Socrates, who both wrote extensively on the topic, differed in their opinions. Socrates argued that death was a positive thing, either resulting in the relocation of one’s soul to heaven (given that they’ve been virtuous), or at the very least a “dreamless sleep,” which might not be great, but is at least not bad. Nagel, however, emphasized the value of life, even if the “bad elements” in life outweighed the good ones.
Soft materialists agree to a point but their key belief is that everything emerges from the physical, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that everything can be reduced to the physical. They would argue that material is the base of everything and the mind emerges from the material - this is backed up by the example that while there would be no thoughts without brains, thoughts can’t be simply reduced to the brain as a material object. Gilbert Ryle is an advocate of Materialism and argues that talking of the soul is a ‘category mistake’. He argues that the soul is not a quantifiable phenomena that can be
Perry’s criticism of this Immaterial Soul View in his essay, expressed through his character Weirob, is based on the fact that souls cannot be and never have been perceived. According to the Immaterial Soul View, any judgments about personal identity must be judgments about souls, since the Immaterial Soul View states that a person’s identity is defined by their soul. However, since immaterial souls cannot be perceived, these judgments we make would be groundless. This means it would not be reasonable to believe people we know are who we think they are because we cannot sense and never have sensed their souls. Intuitively, this concept of judgments we make about people’s identities seems irrational and absurd.
This postulate of God has origin in one’s own reason which would necessarily mean that submitting to will of God is submitting to one’s own reason. The need of God arises because the relationship between moral law and happiness is not guaranteed in this world. So here God comes to the rescue and thus necessitates the compatibility of virtue and realization of highest good. The postulate of immortality is very much interwoven with the postulate of God. Taking into account the sensuous nature of human beings, Kant states that it is very difficult for a man to be righteous without hope.
Therefore, which of these two concepts is more logically coherent? Some would say that reincarnation is entirely more logical than resurrection. As Descartes suggests, if body and soul divide into two categories the body is admittedly perishable and this idea is therefore constant as we have evidence that corpses remain on earth. The possibility of a separate soul is also plausible and difficult to dispute therefore the soul is constant and as Plato suggests a direct link to the form of life, suggesting that the soul must live eternally in some form, as it is unable to die. This is more possible than the idea of resurrection because the souls is not dependent on the body, the theory of reincarnation is logical in saying that the soul passes consistently through this world, entering a different flesh form.
This attitude reflects the commonly-held view amongst contemporary scientists that Freud's theories are unscientific. In this essay, I aim to argue that while Fish makes a valid point about Freud's use of the unconscious as a rhetorical device, to consider it as only a rhetorical device and to dismiss its importance as a scientific concept is not only unjustified, but also impractical in psychological theories of the mind. Freud's theories, I argue, are no less scientific than other theories in science. Before I assert my own arguments concerning this matter, I shall examine Fish's position in greater detail, in order to understand the extent of his claim. A rhetorical device, according to Fish, "is entirely constructed and stands without external support", and "that insofar as it has been installed at the centre of a structure of conviction it acquires the status of that which goes without saying and that against which nothing can be said".
The idea is that when someone dies their form is replicated on an alternate universe, or the resurrection world. The significance of Hicks theory was that it rejected dualism, dualism is the belief that a human person consists of two distinct elements: the mind/soul and the body. The mind/soul is immaterial whereas the body is physical. At the same time Hick presents a defence of the belief in bodily resurrection. This contrasts with both dualism and monism which is the belief that human beings are a single unity of the body and the mind.
World views Materialism vs. Dualism Materialist such as Chris Frith believe that everything is composed of material, so this would mean they believe that the mind and the body are one (brain=mind).On the other hand, dualist such as Plato and Aristotle believe in the existence of a soul (mind) which is present in a different world one that is separate from the physical one. I believe that the materialists are right because there are too many scientific facts that show us how dualism is wrong. We can see that the laws of physic and other technologies show us the flaws of dualism through materialism. We have all been thought in high school the law of conservation of energy by Newton. This law states that in a closed system (our universe) energy can neither be created or destroyed it can only be transformed into another form.
In the novel the characters trust Nick and confide in him quite a bit. He thinks of himself as an open minded non-judgmental, non-partial person. I think that it is almost impossible to live your life and not judge others and also not be partial and judge different individuals with different standards. Nick wants the readers to believe that the way he was raised gives him the right to pass judgment on an immoral world. He says, that as a consequence of the way he was raised he is "inclined to reserve all judgments" about other people (page 5).