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Wittgenstein on the Soul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Extract

It is sometimes said that a human being has a soul, whereas animals and lifeless things do not. The distinction made is of significance probably for most religions. Although it sets man apart and places him in a unique category, it should not be taken to imply that there is no difference between what is alive and has sentience, apart from man, and what is lifeless and unconscious. This was Descartes' error. For he ran together several distinctions and equated the soul with consciousness.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1973

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References

page 162 note 1 Watson, J. B. and McDougall, W., The Battle of Behaviourism (Psyche Miniatures General Series) p. 13.Google Scholar

page 170 note 1 See Dilman, and Phillips, , Sense and Delusion (Routledge, 1971) pp. 82–4.Google Scholar

page 173 note 1 Merton, Thomas, No Man is an Island (Dell paperback) p. 108.Google Scholar

page 173 note 2 Purity of Heart, trans, by Douglas Streere (Fontana paperback) p. 89.Google Scholar

page 173 note 3 Can one say the same of a political life dedicated to serving the people of one's country? Here Plato disagreed with Socrates. I owe this point to Dr Hugh Price.

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page 181 note 1 Not in the Tractatus, but certainly in the Notebooks 1914–16.

page 181 note 2 I do not have the space to discuss what these come to, except to say that in this context ‘true’ characterises a measure. Socrates at the end of the Gorgias: ‘What I am going to tell you, I tell you as the truth’. The reference is to the story of the judgment day and Socrates' claim is that he cannot fill anything else with personal content. As for the distinction between ‘knowledge’ and ‘opinion’, it refers to whether or not a person has made his own the values which he has learnt or accepted. Plato would have said that knowledge begins only where moral instruction ends.

page 183 note 1 I owe this point to Professor Peter Winch. See his paper ‘Ethical Reward and Punishment’, in his book Ethics and Action (Routledge, 1972).Google Scholar

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page 187 note 3 Just as much as the attitude I naturally take to human beings is part of my concept of a human being – see pp. 164–5 above.

page 188 note 1 See Part 1 above.

page 188 note 2 What Wittgenstein says about ‘grounds’ and ‘justification’ in the Investigations, I, 480Google Scholar with regard to Hume's doubt about whether past experience can be a ground for a prediction can be suitably adapted to meet Hume's query about whether a statement of fact can ever justify a judgment of value.

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page 189 note 3 See pp. 182–5 above.

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