"As its title suggests, Immortal Souls by Edward Feser provides a robust philosophical defense of the immortality of the soul. The scope of the book reaches far beyond this one topic, however, as Feser methodically exposits and defends the entire Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics of the human person, addressing in depth such topics as personal identity, freedom of the will, perception and cognition, phenomenal consciousness, and artificial intelligence. The result is an extraordinarily comprehensive and detailed sweep through contemporary philosophy of mind, addressing nearly every major topic of interest. Feser makes a forceful case that Thomism remains a live option, able to resolve many seemingly intractable problems at the intersection of philosophy and the sciences of cognition…
Immortal Souls covers so much ground, and is so dense with argumentation, it would be impossible to survey every topic it addresses in a short review…
Those who work their way through its five hundred plus pages will come away with a solid grasp of the current state of play in contemporary philosophy of mind, which is a richly interdisciplinary field that incorporates findings from psychology and cognitive science in addition to the traditional categories of metaphysics and epistemology. Feser displays an impressive breadth of knowledge in this area, showing himself conversant not only with Thomism and the analytic tradition, but with recent discussions that draw upon phenomenology and empirical psychology as well."
A problem for Thomistic psychology (critique of Feser and Klima):
ReplyDeletehttps://open.substack.com/pub/mashshai/p/a-problem-for-thomistic-psychology?r=4on5dv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
The Thomist denies both alternatives in the article. Substantial form does not inhere in prime matter as attributes do in substances, because nothing can inhere in prime matter in that way - as pure potential, prime matter has no actuality and can't support any other existence. Nor does substantial form exist in itself; a form, in itself, is an abstract concept that a rational being can contemplate, but concepts don't exist in the way that substances do. Rather, the substantial form realizes and defines the prime matter into a proper substance. Neither depends on the other, ontologically - the substance depends on both.
DeleteThe refutation of the "action follows being" Thomist argument thus fails at the statement "And part of what it means for its being to be independent of matter in this context is that it does not inhere in matter i.e., in the way s. form does" - no substantial form inheres in matter, so not inhering in matter cannot be part of what that means. Rather, what calling a substance immaterial means is that it exists, as more than an abstraction, without defining any matter. Angels are such substances that don't normally define any matter; the peculiarity of the human soul is that it normally defines matter as its body, but can exist without doing so.
The Avicennian view, as far as I can tell, requires the human soul and human body to be two different substances - thus it's tantamount to the Cartesian view. It follows that Avicenna faces the same "interaction problem" that Descartes does: why are these substances conjoined at all, and how does either one operate on the other, when none of the soul's operations apply to material beings and none of the body's operations can affect the immaterial?
@ Michael Brazier: I recently read a paper in which the author argues that soul, as form of the living body, is a predicate. The author argues that the soul-to-living body relationship is predicative. So far I find this odd if the soul is a cause of the living body/living organism. Isn't a cause ontologically prior to its effect? I am not understanding how a predicate of a substance can be a cause of the substance unless the cause is "said of" the substance. But the substance is a living animal; the soul isn't a substance as it is in, say, Platonism.
DeleteSo is it wrong to say that the soul-living body relation is predicative, or am I just misunderstanding terminology?
A quote from the article, which displays the errors: A body, the author agrees, is a composite of (substantial) form and prime matter. Now, consider the s. form itself. What sort of relation does it have to the prime matter? Specifically, does it inhere in the prime matter? If so, then s. form, by their criteria, is not a substance but rather an attribute i.e., of prime matter, where the prime matter serves as the ‘subject’ of said attribute.
DeleteNo, substantial form and the matter both belong in the category "substance" and not in any of the other categories (which are all of being which inheres in substance). The substantial form informs the matter so as to make of it a substance, and the matter individuates the formal principle so as to make it a one being. Both are "the substance" as being principles of the substance, the (two) principles that make the substance to be that thing of a specific kind. Accidents inhere in a substance not as principles of it but as attributes. It is true that form and matter may be said to be "in" the substance as those kinds of cause are the "inherent" cause, whereas agent and final cause are causes that do not inhere in the thing. But this clearly uses "inhere" in two senses, for accidents inhere in substance as attributes, not as making is to be a thing as such.
(There are other things that are in the category of substance without being substances: The principles of genus and species also belong in the category of substance, not as designating individual substances as such, but as designating substances by their essential differentiating principles.)
fincino, if the paper is correct, I suspect that what it means is to make almost more of a grammatical comment, rather than a ontological one: the soul is said to be the form of an individual body on account of the matter being the principle of individuation: you could not say "THIS rational soul" (as opposed to "rational soul in general") but by it being the soul of THIS matter. Because it is true that the soul is a concrete, real "a THIS one" by being the form "of this matter", the "of" means there is a kind of relation there. But it's not an accidental relation which "inheres in" the being, rather it's the very make-up of the substantial being. One could - in some sense or other - "predicate" the soul as "of this body", but it's just as true to predicate the matter "of this soul", which clarifies that they are both root principles of the substance.
@Tony: thank you for your response. I mostly agree. I would hesitate, though, to predicate an individual living body's matter "of" that body's soul. To me that sounds as though the soul is the substance, but we want the substance to be the composite. And we wouldn't want to speak as though a soul has matter if we say that the soul is the form. But yes, I get it that there is an intentional relation of my matter to my soul, so perhaps there is a sense in which "predicate" can capture this intentional relation. I'm just having trouble with that notion because I don't see that "the matter" is said OF "the soul" as "man" is said of Socrates, and I don't see how the matter is said "in" the soul, as "pale" is "said in" Socrates. So I'm not seeing predication as the Categories conceives of predication to designate the relation between a living body's matter and its soul.
DeleteGreat to see the appreciation for your book , Prof.
ReplyDeleteWell deserved!
Avicenna's psychology of the soul
ReplyDeletehttps://arabicphilosophyjkh.wordpress.com/category/project-thesis-on-the-soul/
A review of "Immortal Souls" in a leading philosophy journal such as the Philosophical Review or the Journal of Philosophy would be of greater interest than the Catholic World Report......
ReplyDeleteReviews in academic journals generally take longer to appear. My books often get reviewed both in academic journals and popular outlets. Not sure why that's a minus.
DeleteIt is not minus, Dr. Feser, it is a very big plus, because you are one of few philosophers who can write for both specialized academic journals and popular outlets.
DeleteAlexander, I don't understand the tone of your comment. Why are you trying to diminish Ed's work?
DeleteReviews are a good thing in general, but you should not overstate them. How many pop philosophers or pop scientists have you seen in the last couple of years that got good reviews in respectable journals of philosophy when, in fact, their work was only average at best or a philosophical mess worse? Making this question is answering it.
You should not judge whether it got a review on this or that platform/journal, but you should judge the work by reading it yourself. Ed's Immortal Souls is a revigorating opus that translates the very hard (to say the least) jargon and ingenuity of analytic philosophy to the average guy (like myself and many others). And, most importantly, it addresses thoroughly the most important aspects of human life on this earth against the pop metaphysical ideologies of modernity.
The book has over 500 pages of extensive and well-developed argumentation for the immortality of the soul, the existence of the self, the immateriality of the intellect, free will, and much more. So, when you think about all of that, how come any journal/review the book appears in or not becomes more important than the vast, rich, and good content of the book itself? You should think about it.