ARE SOUL AND SELF

DIFFERENT?
If So, How Are They Different?
 INTRODUCTION
The study of soul falls on the branch of Philosophy, metaphysics.
Metaphysics comes from the Greek word “meta” which means beyond
and “physika” or physics which is the study of matter. Metaphysics simply
means the study of beings beyond matter or the science of what is
beyond physical. Soul is not a physical being. No one can see or touch it.
Metaphysics answers the questions, “What is there? What is it like?” Under
metaphysics, the existence, nature and properties of soul is being
investigated.
 Self on the other hand, can be viewed both on philosophical and
psychological perspective. Psychology, as the study of mind, embraces all
aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought.
DEFINITIONS OF SOUL AND SELF
 A. SOUL
• Inner essence of a being comprising its locus of sapience (self-awareness)
and metaphysical identity.
• Usually described as immortal (surviving death in an afterlife) and
incorporeal (without bodily form).
• Not necessarily eternal or indestructible.
 1. WESTERN THOUGHT
a. Homer - soul as a phantasm of the person, with height, sight, speech, and
the ability to move.
b. Socrates - soul is pure and rid of the body’s foolishness and thus able to
gasp that which really is. He believes that soul is immortal.
c. Plato - soul pre-existed the body and it was immortal.
d. Aristotle - soul was the form of the body-that is, it made the matter of the
body into a human being. He is unclear about how the soul survives the body
but seems to indicate that it does so by the survival of mind, or nous in Greek.
e. Pre-Pythagorean belief - soul had no life when it departed from the body,
and retired into Hades with no hope of returning to a body.
 2. BIBLICAL CONCEPTS
a. Old Testament
Its concept of man is that of a unity, not a union of soul and body.
Although the Hebrew word “nefesh” is frequently translated as "soul," it would
be inaccurate to read into it a Greek meaning. Nefesh is the principle of life
and the sea of psychological activity, but it is never conceived of as operating
separately from the body.
b. New Testament
The Greek word psyche is often translated as "soul" but again should not
be readily understood to have the meaning the word had for the Greek
philosophers. It usually means "life" or "vitality" or at times, "the self."
 3. EASTERN THOUGHT
The main tradition of Hindu thought the soul, or the atman as it is called,
usually is conceived as identical with the world soul or brahman. The atman
passes from one incarnation to the next.

In Buddhism there is no perduring or surviving self-such as atman.

Meditation leads to awareness that the idea of self, or atman, is mere illusion.
 4. RELIGIOUS VIEWS
a. Chinese Beliefs
The ancient Chinese believed that every person's soul consisted of at least two
distinct parts:
◦ P'o - visible personality indissolubly attached to the body
◦ Hun - more ethereal complement also interpenetrating the body, but not of
necessity tied to it.

b. Christian Beliefs
Regard the soul as the immortal essence of a human - the seat or locus of human
will, understanding, and personality.
◦ Augustine - described the soul as "a special substance, endowed with reason,
adapted to rule the body."
◦ St. Thomas Aquinas - understood the soul as the first principle, or act, of the body
- the soul was definitely not corporeal and it could not be destroyed in any
natural process.
- the soul is the center of the human will, intellect, and imagination, and
the source of all free human acts.
c. Hindu Beliefs
In Hinduism, several Sanskrit words are used to denote the "soul" within living
beings:
◦ Jiva (individual soul)
◦ Atman (intrinsic divine essence)
◦ Purusha (spirit)
Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the
soul.
◦ Advaita (non-dualism) accords the soul union with Brahman (the Absolute)
in eventuality or in pre-existing fact.
◦ Dvaita (dualism) rejects this position, instead identifying the soul as a
different and incompatible substance
◦ The Bhagavad Gita refers to the spiritual body or soul as Purusha.
▫ Purusha - part and parcel of God; unchanging, indestructible, indivisible
- have three characteristics: Sat (truth or existence), Chit
(consciousness or knowledge), and Ananda.
d. Jewish Beliefs
◦ Saadia Gaon (Emunoth ve-Deoth 6:3) - soul comprises that part of a
person's mind that constitutes physical desire, emotion, and thought.
◦ Maimonides (The Guide to the Perplexed) – viewed the soul through
the lens of neo-Aristotelian philosophy, as a person's developed intellect.
◦ Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) saw the soul as having three elements:
▫ nephesh - source of one's physical and psychological nature
▫ ru'ah - contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish
between good and evil
▫ neshamah - relates to the intellect, and allows man to enjoy and
benefit from the afterlife
e. Muslim Beliefs
It is generally believed that all living beings are comprised of two
aspects during their existence:
◦ physical (being the body) - serve as a “reflection” of one’s soul,
whether it is good or evil, thus confirming the extent of such intentions.
◦ non-physical (being the soul) - includes his/her feelings and
emotions, thoughts, conscious and sub-conscious desires and objectives
 B. SELF
1. Self in Philosophy
◦ seeks to describe essential qualities that constitute a person's uniqueness or
essential being
◦ defines, among other things, the conditions of identity that make one subject
of experience distinct from all others
◦ understood as a unified being essentially connected to consciousness,
awareness, and agency
2. Self in Psychology
◦ study of either the cognitive, conative or affective representation of one's
identity or the subject of experience
◦ derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower,
and the self as Me, the object that is known
◦ enable people to alter, change, add, and modify aspects of themselves in
order to gain social acceptance in society
 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF
DIFFERENT POSITIONS
Every philosopher and religion believes that the soul is the foundation of
life, that all living things have soul. Soul is the essence of being. There are some
minor differences in their definition of soul. According to Plato, soul pre-existed
and is independent of body but Aristotle argued against it and does not
consider Plato’s idea of soul. He believes that soul and body are dependent of
each other.
Religions believe mostly that soul and self are connected. Though some
religions believe that soul has different parts or faculty, still their main point is
soul is connected to mind. Soul is synonymous with the self. The Old Testament
used the word “nefesh” which means the principle of life and the sea of
psychological activity while the New Testament used the word “psyche”
which means life or sometimes self. Most religions believe that the soul is the
origin of psychological nature of man.
 CONCLUSION
Soul and Self both define the existence of man in different points. Soul is
the one that gives life to the body. Self governs man’s action and mind. These
two does not contradict the existence of each other because they are the
same thing, they are one.
Some believe that soul does exist simply because it is not conceivable
by their senses. When someone dies, some might say that the person who died
is gone though they can still see the body in the casket. What they must mean
with that is the consciousness of that person is gone and that consciousness is
what we call soul or self. Soul is the principle of life, absence of soul means
death, and death also means absence of consciousness or self.