LESSON 5

PHILOSOPHY AND
SPIRITUALITY
Read and Reflect on the selection on page 72.

1) What thoughts and ideas are conveyed by the psalm?

2) What are your personal thoughts on the soul or spirit?
3) What are your personal thoughts on God?

• What is the spirit?

- Spirit is the immortal and noncorporeal essence of man.
- In major monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Islam, & Christianity
believe that man is the only being with a soul.
- Other religions such as Jainism and Hinduism, on the other hand,
recognize that other living beings also possess souls.
- For animistic religions such as Shintoism, non-living things such as
mountains and rivers also possess a soul.
• Embodiment is a central concept in discussing the nature of the
human soul. It refers primarily to how the body, its senses, and
perception define human function and consciousness.

• Psychologists have defined man’s embodiment as embodied

cognition – that man is able to perceive and experience reality
through his physical body.

• The notion of self arises through the interaction between the

individual and his environment. Later studies & discussions on human
embodiment have proposed that consciousness has both a
physical and non-physical nature.

• Philosophers often ponder on the essence of a body-specifically, the

human body – and whether the existence of a human soul inside a
body defines the individual.
• In understanding embodiment, philosophers ponder upon the
following questions:
1) Does man need a soul in order to exist?
2) Does having a soul define what a human being is?
3) What is the relationship between embodiment and individuality?

• Christian doctrine holds that the spirit is created by God, and that is
embodied in the human being. Upon the body’s demise, the spirit
continues to persist into the afterlife.
• The spirit also is an essential element for the salvation of mankind, as
the departed spirits will be raised from the dead and shall receive
the judgment of God.
• The Ancient Greek philosophers have proposed varied ideas on the
nature of the spirit:
• Plato believed that the human spirit or soul is composed of 3 parts:
a) logos ( the mind or reason)
b) thymos (spirit)
c) epithymia (appetite)
• Plato believed that the soul is what made the body move. The
reason for the soul having three parts comes from the idea that in
every individual there exists an internal conflict explained by the
conflicting parts of the soul.
• The reason is responsible for our having rational goals; the spirit is the will
or the drive toward an action; and the appetite refers to the things that
the body desires.
• Internal conflict happens when the appetite becomes distracted & goes
against reason and when the spirit, which has the tendency to be pulled
either toward the rational goal or the bodily desire, follows the direction of
the appetite.
• Aristotle rejected Plato’s explanation and believed that the soul is
not independent of the body but is integrated into the human
being. He explained that the individual is composed of form and
matter.
• This means that various elements & components from nature come
together to form the physical structure of the body, and the soul or
the spiritual component combines with the body to give rise to the
individual person.
• Matter refers to the components that make up an object, while the
form refers to the structure and arrangement of matter that actually
gives rise to the object itself.
• Later, Philosophers and thinkers focused on the relationship
between the mind and body in their discussions of the soul. They
have long argued over the nature of the mind and body.
• The mind-body problem considers the question of how the mental
or nonphysical are able to interact with the physical body, and to
what extent one influences the other. Earlier views on this includes:

a. physicalism – which believes that physical processes determine

the state of the mind.
b. idealism – holds that mental processes and thoughts are the only
reality
c. monism – argues that the human being is composed of elements
that are neither physical nor mental
d. dualism – believes in the distinctiveness of the physical & mental
nature of man
• The Islamic Philosopher Avicenna, argued that self-awareness and
consciousness exists even if the body is deprived of its senses. And
for him, the soul is immaterial, indestructible, and independent of
the body.
• This was echoed by Rene Descartes, who proposed that the mind
and body exist as two separate entities that interact with one
another. He used methodic or systematic doubt, doubting
everything that he knows to remove false knowledge and opinion.
• Religious philosophers also pondered on the nature of man, but
placed more importance on the spirit or soul as the essential
component of human existence.
• St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the soul is the “first actuality” of
the body; for there to be a body, there should first be a soul. For him,
the soul has a substance but has no physical or concrete form, and
is able to exist without the body.
 • St. Augustine, considered the soul as the driving force that governs
the body, and defines the human person.

DISCUSS:
1) How does embodiment explain the existence of the human spirit?
2) What are the various views regarding the relationship between the
body and spirit?