The meaning of word soul

Not to be confused with Seoul.

In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief of «an immaterial aspect or essence of a living being», generally applied to humans, called the soul.^[1] In lay terms the soul is the spiritual essence of a person, which includes our identity, personality, and memories that is believed to be able to survive our physical death.

Etymology[edit]

The Modern English noun soul is derived from Old English sāwol, sāwel. The earliest attestations reported in the Oxford English Dictionary are from the 8th century. In King Alfred’s translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae, it is used to refer to the immaterial, spiritual, or thinking aspect of a person, as contrasted with the person’s physical body; in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50, it means «life» or «animate existence».

The Old English word is cognate with other historical Germanic terms for the same idea, including Old Frisian sēle, sēl (which could also mean «salvation», or «solemn oath»), Gothic saiwala, Old High German sēula, sēla, Old Saxon sēola, and Old Norse sāla. Present-day cognates include Dutch ziel and German Seele.^[2]

Religious views[edit]

In Judaism and in some Christian denominations, only human beings have immortal souls (although immortality is disputed within Judaism and the concept of immortality was most likely influenced by Plato).^[3] For example, Thomas Aquinas, borrowing directly from Aristotle’s On the Soul, attributed «soul» (anima) to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal.^[4] Other religions (most notably Hinduism and Jainism) believe that all living things from the smallest bacterium to the largest of mammals are the souls themselves (Atman, jiva) and have their physical representative (the body) in the world. The actual self is the soul, while the body is only a mechanism to experience the karma of that life. Thus if one sees a tiger then there is a self-conscious identity residing in it (the soul), and a physical representative (the whole body of the tiger, which is observable) in the world. Some teach that even non-biological entities (such as rivers and mountains) possess souls. This belief is called animism.^[5]

Ancient Near East[edit]

In the ancient Egyptian religion, an individual was believed to be made up of various elements, some physical and some spiritual. Similar ideas are found in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian religion. The Kuttamuwa stele, a funeral stele for an 8th-century BCE royal official from Sam’al, describes Kuttamuwa requesting that his mourners commemorate his life and his afterlife with feasts «for my soul that is in this stele». It is one of the earliest references to a soul as a separate entity from the body. The 800-pound (360 kg) basalt stele is 3 ft (0.91 m) tall and 2 ft (0.61 m) wide. It was uncovered in the third season of excavations by the Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute in Chicago, Illinois.^[6]

Baháʼí Faith[edit]

The Baháʼí Faith affirms that «the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel».^[7] Bahá’u’lláh stated that the soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body, but is, in fact, immortal.^[8] Heaven can be seen partly as the soul’s state of nearness to God; and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually.^[9] Bahá’u’lláh taught that individuals have no existence prior to their life here on earth and the soul’s evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.^[9]

Christianity[edit]

According to some Christian eschatology, when people die, their souls will be judged by God and determined to go to Heaven or to Hades awaiting a resurrection. The oldest existing branches of Christianity, the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, adhere to this view, as well as many Protestant denominations. Some Protestant Christians understand the soul as «life,” and believe that the dead have no conscious existence until after the resurrection (Christian conditionalism). Some Protestant Christians believe that the souls and bodies of the unrighteous will be destroyed in Hell rather than suffering eternally (annihilationism). Believers will inherit eternal life either in Heaven, or in a Kingdom of God on earth, and enjoy eternal fellowship with God. Other Christians reject the punishment of the soul.

Paul the Apostle used ψυχή (psychē) and πνεῦμα (pneuma) specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of נפש (nephesh) and רוח ruah (spirit)^[10] (also in the Septuagint, e.g. Genesis 1:2 רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים = πνεῦμα θεοῦ = spiritus Dei = «the Spirit of God»).

Christians generally believe in the existence and eternal, infinite nature of the soul.^[11]

Origin of the soul[edit]

The «origin of the soul» has provided a vexing question in Christianity. The major theories put forward include soul creationism, traducianism, and pre-existence. According to soul creationism, God creates each individual soul directly, either at the moment of conception or some later time. According to traducianism, the soul comes from the parents by natural generation. According to the preexistence theory, the soul exists before the moment of conception. There have been differing thoughts regarding whether human embryos have souls from conception, or whether there is a point between conception and birth where the fetus acquires a soul, consciousness, and/or personhood. Stances in this question might play a role in judgements on the morality of abortion.^[12][13][14]

Trichotomy of the soul[edit]

Augustine (354-430), one of western Christianity’s most influential early Christian thinkers, described the soul as «a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body». Some Christians espouse a trichotomic view of humans, which characterizes humans as consisting of a body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma).^[15] However, the majority of modern Bible scholars point out how the concepts of «spirit» and of «soul» are used interchangeably in many biblical passages, and so hold to dichotomy: the view that each human comprises a body and a soul. Paul said that the «body wars against» the soul, «For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit» (Heb 4:12 NASB), and that «I buffet my body», to keep it under control.

Views of various denominations[edit]

Roman Catholicism

The present Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the term soul

“refers to the innermost aspect of [persons], that which is of greatest value in [them], that by which [they are] most especially in God’s image: ‘soul’ signifies the spiritual principle in [humanity]”.^[16]

All souls living and dead will be judged by Jesus Christ when he comes back to earth. The Catholic Church teaches that the existence of each individual soul is dependent wholly upon God:

«The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.»^[17]

Protestantism

Protestants generally believe in the soul’s existence and immortality, but fall into two major camps about what this means in terms of an afterlife. Some, following John Calvin, believe that the soul persists as consciousness after death.^[18] Others, following Martin Luther, believe that the soul dies with the body, and is unconscious («sleeps») until the resurrection of the dead.^[19][20]

Adventism

Various new religious movements deriving from Adventism — including Christadelphians,^[21] Seventh-day Adventists,^[22][23] and Jehovah’s Witnesses^[24][25] — similarly believe that the dead do not possess a soul separate from the body and are unconscious until the resurrection.

Latter-day Saints (‘Mormonism’)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the spirit and body together constitute the Soul of Man (Mankind). «The spirit and the body are the soul of man.»^[26] Latter-day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit^[27][28][29] and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth.

After death, the spirit continues to live and progress in the Spirit world until the resurrection, when it is reunited with the body that once housed it. This reuniting of body and spirit results in a perfect soul that is immortal, and eternal, and capable of receiving a fulness of joy.^[30][31]

Latter-day Saint cosmology also describes «intelligences» as the essence of consciousness or agency. These are co-eternal with God, and animate the spirits.^[32] The union of a newly-created spirit body with an eternally-existing intelligence constitutes a «spirit birth»^{[citation needed]} and justifies God’s title «Father of our spirits».^[33][34][35]

Confucianism[edit]

Some Confucian traditions contrast a spiritual soul with a corporeal soul.^[36]

Hinduism[edit]

Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means inner self or soul.^[37][38][39] In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism, Ātman is the first principle,^[40] the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain liberation (moksha), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana), which is to realize that one’s true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent self Brahman according to Advaita Vedanta.^[38][41]

The six orthodox schools of Hinduism believe that there is Ātman (self, essence) in every being.^[42]

In Hinduism and Jainism, a jiva (Sanskrit: जीव, jīva, alternative spelling jiwa; Hindi: जीव, jīv, alternative spelling jeev) is a living being, or any entity imbued with a life force.^[43]

The concept of jiva in Jainism is similar to atman in Hinduism. However, some Hindu traditions differentiate between the two concepts, with jiva considered as individual self, while atman as that which is universal unchanging self that is present in all living beings and everything else as the metaphysical Brahman.^[44][45][46] The latter is sometimes referred to as jiva-atman (a soul in a living body).^[44]

Islam[edit]

The Quran, the holy book of Islam, uses two words to refer to the soul: rūḥ (translated as spirit, consciousness, pneuma or «soul») and nafs (translated as self, ego, psyche or «soul»),^[47][48] cognates of the Hebrew nefesh and ruach. The two terms are frequently used interchangeably, though rūḥ is more often used to denote the divine spirit or «the breath of life», while nafs designates one’s disposition or characteristics.^[49] In Islamic philosophy, the immortal rūḥ «drives» the mortal nafs, which comprises temporal desires and perceptions necessary for living.^{[citation needed]}

Two of the passages in the Quran that mention the rûh occur in chapters 17 («The Night Journey») and 39 («The Troops»):

And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the Rûh. Say, «The Rûh is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind has not been given of knowledge except a little.

Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought..

Jainism[edit]

In Jainism, every living being, from plant or bacterium to human, has a soul and the concept forms the very basis of Jainism. According to Jainism, there is no beginning or end to the existence of soul. It is eternal in nature and changes its form until it attains liberation.

In Jainism, jiva is the immortal essence or soul of a living organism (human, animal, fish or plant etc.) which survives physical death.^[50] The concept of Ajiva in Jainism means «not soul», and represents matter (including body), time, space, non-motion and motion.^[50] In Jainism, a Jiva is either samsari (mundane, caught in cycle of rebirths) or mukta (liberated).^[51][52]

According to this belief until the time the soul is liberated from the saṃsāra (cycle of repeated birth and death), it gets attached to one of these bodies based on the karma (actions) of the individual soul. Irrespective of which state the soul is in, it has got the same attributes and qualities. The difference between the liberated and non-liberated souls is that the qualities and attributes are manifested completely in case of siddha (liberated soul) as they have overcome all the karmic bondages whereas in case of non-liberated souls they are partially exhibited. Souls who rise victorious over wicked emotions while still remaining within physical bodies are referred to as arihants.^[53]

Concerning the Jain view of the soul, Virchand Gandhi said

the soul lives its own life, not for the purpose of the body, but the body lives for the purpose of the soul. If we believe that the soul is to be controlled by the body then soul misses its power.^[54]

Judaism[edit]

The Hebrew terms נפש‎ nefesh (literally «living being»), רוח‎ ruach (literally «wind»), נשמה‎ neshamah (literally «breath»), חיה‎ chayah (literally «life») and יחידה‎ yechidah (literally «singularity») are used to describe the soul or spirit.^[55]

In Judaism the soul is believed to be given by God to Adam as mentioned in Genesis,

Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

—Genesis 2:7

Judaism relates the quality of one’s soul to one’s performance of the commandments (mitzvot) and reaching higher levels of understanding, and thus closeness to God. A person with such closeness is called a tzadik. Therefore, Judaism embraces the commemoration of the day of one’s death, nahala/Yahrtzeit and not the birthday^[56] as a festivity of remembrance, for only toward the end of life’s struggles, tests and challenges could human souls be judged and credited for righteousness.^[57] Judaism places great importance on the study of the souls.^[58]

Kabbalah and other mystic traditions go into greater detail into the nature of the soul. Kabbalah separates the soul into five elements, corresponding to the five worlds:^[59]

1. Nefesh, related to natural instinct.
2. Ruach, related to intellect and the awareness of God.
3. Neshamah, related to emotion and morality.
4. Chayah, considered a part of God, as it were.
5. Yechidah. This aspect is essentially one with God.

Kabbalah also proposed a concept of reincarnation, the gilgul. (See also nefesh habehamit the «animal soul».)^{[citation needed]}

Some Jewish traditions assert that the soul is housed in the luz bone, though traditions disagree as to whether it is the atlas at the top of the spine, or the sacrum at bottom of the spine.^{[citation needed]}

Scientology[edit]

The Scientology view is that a person does not have a soul, it is a soul. It is the belief of the religion that they do not have the power to force adherents’ conclusions.^[60] Therefore, a person is immortal, and may be reincarnated if they wish. Scientologists view that one’s future happiness and immortality, as guided by their spirituality, is influenced by how they live and act during their time on earth.^[60] The Scientology term for the soul is «thetan», derived from the Greek word «theta», symbolizing thought. Scientology counselling (called auditing) addresses the soul to improve abilities, both worldly and spiritual. The ideologies surrounding this understanding align with those of the five major world religions.^[60]

Shamanism[edit]

Soul dualism (also called «multiple souls» or «dualistic pluralism») is a common belief in Shamanism,^[61][62][63] and is essential in the universal and central concept of «soul flight» (also called «soul journey», «out-of-body experience», «ecstasy», or «astral projection»).^{[64][63][65][66][67]} It is the belief that humans have two or more souls, generally termed the «body soul» (or «life soul») and the «free soul». The former is linked to bodily functions and awareness when awake, while the latter can freely wander during sleep or trance states.^{[62][65][66][67][68]} In some cases, there are a plethora of soul types with different functions.^[69][70]

Soul dualism and multiple souls are prominent in the traditional animistic beliefs of the Austronesian peoples,^[71][72] the Chinese people (hún and pò),^[73] the Tibetan people,^[61] most African peoples,^[74] most Native North Americans,^[74][69] ancient South Asian peoples,^[63] Northern Eurasian peoples,^[67][75] and in Ancient Egyptians (the ka and ba).^[74]

The belief in soul dualism is found throughout most Austronesian shamanistic traditions. The reconstructed Proto-Austronesian word for the «body soul» is *nawa («breath», «life», or «vital spirit»). It is located somewhere in the abdominal cavity, often in the liver or the heart (Proto-Austronesian *qaCay).^[71][72] The «free soul» is located in the head. Its names are usually derived from Proto-Austronesian *qaNiCu («ghost», «spirit [of the dead]»), which also apply to other non-human nature spirits. The «free soul» is also referred to in names that literally mean «twin» or «double», from Proto-Austronesian *duSa («two»).^[76][77] A virtuous person is said to be one whose souls are in harmony with each other, while an evil person is one whose souls are in conflict.^[78]

The «free soul» is said to leave the body and journey to the spirit world during sleep, trance-like states, delirium, insanity, and death. The duality is also seen in the healing traditions of Austronesian shamans, where illnesses are regarded as a «soul loss» and thus to heal the sick, one must «return» the «free soul» (which may have been stolen by an evil spirit or got lost in the spirit world) into the body. If the «free soul» can not be returned, the afflicted person dies or goes permanently insane.^[79]

In some ethnic groups, there can also be more than two souls. Like among the Tagbanwa people, where a person is said to have six souls – the «free soul» (which is regarded as the «true» soul) and five secondary souls with various functions.^[71]

Several Inuit groups believe that a person has more than one type of soul. One is associated with respiration, the other can accompany the body as a shadow.^[80] In some cases, it is connected to shamanistic beliefs among the various Inuit groups.^[69] Also Caribou Inuit groups believed in several types of souls.^[81]

The shaman heals within the spiritual dimension by returning ‘lost’ parts of the human soul from wherever they have gone. The shaman also cleanses excess negative energies, which confuse or pollute the soul.

Shinto[edit]

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Shinto distinguishes between the souls of living persons (tamashii) and those of dead persons (mitama), each of which may have different aspects or sub-souls.

Sikhism[edit]

Sikhism considers soul (atma) to be part of God (Waheguru). Various hymns are cited from the holy book Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS) that suggests this belief. «God is in the Soul and the Soul is in the God.»^[82] The same concept is repeated at various pages of the SGGS. For example: «The soul is divine; divine is the soul. Worship Him with love.»^[83] and «The soul is the Lord, and the Lord is the soul; contemplating the Shabad, the Lord is found.»^[84]

The atma or soul according to Sikhism is an entity or «spiritual spark» or «light» in the human body — because of which the body can sustain life. On the departure of this entity from the body, the body becomes lifeless – no amount of manipulations to the body can make the person make any physical actions. The soul is the «driver» in the body. It is the roohu or spirit or atma, the presence of which makes the physical body alive.

Many^[quantify] religious and philosophical traditions support the view that the soul is the ethereal substance – a spirit; a non-material spark – particular to a unique living being. Such traditions often consider the soul both immortal and innately aware of its immortal nature, as well as the true basis for sentience in each living being. The concept of the soul has strong links with notions of an afterlife, but opinions may vary wildly even within a given religion as to what happens to the soul after death. Many within these religions and philosophies see the soul as immaterial, while others consider it possibly material.

Taoism[edit]

According to Chinese traditions, every person has two types of soul called hun and po (魂 and 魄), which are respectively yang and yin. Taoism believes in ten souls, sanhunqipo (三魂七魄) «three hun and seven po«.^[85] A living being that loses any of them is said to have mental illness or unconsciousness, while a dead soul may reincarnate to a disability, lower desire realms, or may even be unable to reincarnate.

Zoroastrianism[edit]

Other religious beliefs and views[edit]

In theological reference to the soul, the terms «life» and «death» are viewed as emphatically more definitive than the common concepts of «biological life» and «biological death». Because the soul is said to be transcendent of the material existence, and is said to have (potentially) eternal life, the death of the soul is likewise said to be an eternal death. Thus, in the concept of divine judgment, God is commonly said to have options with regard to the dispensation of souls, ranging from Heaven (i.e., angels) to hell (i.e., demons), with various concepts in between. Typically both Heaven and hell are said to be eternal, or at least far beyond a typical human concept of lifespan and time.

According to Louis Ginzberg, the soul of Adam is the image of God.^[86] Every soul of human also escapes from the body every night, rises up to heaven, and fetches new life thence for the body of man.^[87]

Spirituality, New Age, and new religions[edit]

Brahma Kumaris[edit]

In Brahma Kumaris, human souls are believed to be incorporeal and eternal. God is considered to be the Supreme Soul, with maximum degrees of spiritual qualities, such as peace, love and purity.^[88]

Theosophy[edit]

In Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy, the soul is the field of our psychological activity (thinking, emotions, memory, desires, will, and so on) as well as of the so-called paranormal or psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, out-of-body experiences, etc.). However, the soul is not the highest, but a middle dimension of human beings. Higher than the soul is the spirit, which is considered to be the real self; the source of everything we call «good»—happiness, wisdom, love, compassion, harmony, peace, etc. While the spirit is eternal and incorruptible, the soul is not. The soul acts as a link between the material body and the spiritual self, and therefore shares some characteristics of both. The soul can be attracted either towards the spiritual or towards the material realm, being thus the «battlefield» of good and evil. It is only when the soul is attracted towards the spiritual and merges with the Self that it becomes eternal and divine.

Anthroposophy[edit]

Rudolf Steiner claimed classical trichotomic stages of soul development, which interpenetrated one another in consciousness:^[89]

• The «sentient soul», centering on sensations, drives, and passions, with strong conative (will) and emotional components;
• The «intellectual» or «mind soul», internalizing and reflecting on outer experience, with strong affective (feeling) and cognitive (thinking) components; and
• The «consciousness soul», in search of universal, objective truths.

Miscellaneous[edit]

In Surat Shabda Yoga, the soul is considered to be an exact replica and spark of the Divine. The purpose of Surat Shabd Yoga is to realize one’s True Self as soul (Self-Realisation), True Essence (Spirit-Realisation) and True Divinity (God-Realisation) while living in the physical body.

Similarly, the spiritual teacher Meher Baba held that «Atma, or the soul, is in reality identical with Paramatma the Oversoul – which is one, infinite, and eternal…[and] [t]he sole purpose of creation is for the soul to enjoy the infinite state of the Oversoul consciously.»^[90]

Eckankar, founded by Paul Twitchell in 1965, defines Soul as the true self; the inner, most sacred part of each person.^[91]

G.I. Gurdjieff taught that humans are not born with immortal souls but could develop them through certain efforts.^[92]

Philosophical views[edit]

Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, understood that the soul (ψυχή psykhḗ) must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. At his defense trial, Socrates even summarized his teachings as nothing other than an exhortation for his fellow Athenians to excel in matters of the psyche since all bodily goods are dependent on such excellence (Apology 30a–b). Aristotle reasoned that a man’s body and soul were his matter and form respectively: the body is a collection of elements and the soul is the essence.

Soul or psyche (Ancient Greek: ψυχή psykhḗ, of ψύχειν psýkhein, «to breathe», cf. Latin ‘anima’) comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, free will, feeling, consciousness, qualia, memory, perception, thinking, etc. Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal.^[93] The ancient Greeks used the word «ensouled» to represent the concept of being «alive», indicating that the earliest surviving western philosophical view believed that the soul was that which gave the body life.^[94] The soul was considered the incorporeal or spiritual «breath» that animates (from the Latin, anima, cf. «animal») the living organism.

Francis M. Cornford quotes Pindar by saying that the soul sleeps while the limbs are active, but when one is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals «an award of joy or sorrow drawing near» in dreams.^[95]

Erwin Rohde writes that an early pre-Pythagorean belief presented the soul as lifeless when it departed the body, and that it retired into Hades with no hope of returning to a body.^[96]

Plato was the first thinker in antiquity to combine the various functions of the soul into one coherent conception: the soul is that which moves things (i.e., that which gives life, on the view that life is self-motion) by means of its thoughts, requiring that it be both a mover and a thinker.^[97]

Socrates and Plato[edit]

Drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. However, Aristotle believed that only one part of the soul was immortal, namely the intellect (logos). The Platonic soul consists of three parts:^[98]

1. the logos, or logistikon (mind, nous, or reason)
2. the thymos, or thumetikon (emotion, spiritedness, or masculine)
3. the eros, or epithumetikon (appetitive, desire, or feminine)

The parts are located in different regions of the body:

1. logos is located in the head, is related to reason and regulates the other part.
2. thymos is located near the chest region and is related to anger.
3. eros is located in the stomach and is related to one’s desires.

Plato also compares the three parts of the soul or psyche to a societal caste system. According to Plato’s theory, the three-part soul is essentially the same thing as a state’s class system because, to function well, each part must contribute so that the whole functions well. Logos keeps the other functions of the soul regulated.

The soul is at the heart of Plato’s philosophy. Francis Cornford described the twin pillars of Platonism as being the theory of the Forms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.^[99] Indeed, Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that the soul was both the source of life and the mind. In Plato’s dialogues, we find the soul playing many disparate roles.^[100] Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the Laws and Phaedrus) in terms of self-motion: to be alive is to be capable of moving yourself; the soul is a self-mover. He also thinks that the soul is the bearer of moral properties (i.e., when I am virtuous, it is my soul that is virtuous as opposed to, say, my body). The soul is also the mind: it is that which thinks in us.

We see this casual oscillation between different roles of the soul in many dialogues. First of all, in the Republic:

Is there any function of the soul that you could not accomplish with anything else, such as taking care of something (epimeleisthai), ruling, and deliberating, and other such things? Could we correctly assign these things to anything besides the soul, and say that they are characteristic (idia) of it?

No, to nothing else.

What about living? Will we deny that this is a function of the soul?

That absolutely is.^[101]

The Phaedo most famously caused problems to scholars who were trying to make sense of this aspect of Plato’s theory of the soul, such as Sarah Broadie^[102] and Dorothea Frede.^[103]

More-recent scholarship has overturned this accusation by arguing that part of the novelty of Plato’s theory of the soul is that it was the first to unite the different features and powers of the soul that became commonplace in later ancient and medieval philosophy.^[97] For Plato, the soul moves things by means of its thoughts, as one scholar puts it, and accordingly, the soul is both a mover (i.e., the principle of life, where life is conceived of as self-motion) and a thinker.^[97]

Aristotle[edit]

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) defined the soul, or Psūchê (ψυχή), as the «first actuality» of a naturally organized body,^[104] and argued against its separate existence from the physical body. In Aristotle’s view, the primary activity, or full actualization, of a living thing constitutes its soul. For example, the full actualization of an eye, as an independent organism, is to see (its purpose or final cause).^[105] Another example is that the full actualization of a human being would be living a fully functional human life in accordance with reason (which he considered to be a faculty unique to humanity).^[106] For Aristotle, the soul is the organization of the form and matter of a natural being which allows it to strive for its full actualization. This organization between form and matter is necessary for any activity, or functionality, to be possible in a natural being. Using an artifact (non-natural being) as an example, a house is a building for human habituation, but for a house to be actualized requires the material (wood, nails, bricks, etc.) necessary for its actuality (i.e. being a fully functional house). However, this does not imply that a house has a soul. In regards to artifacts, the source of motion that is required for their full actualization is outside of themselves (for example, a builder builds a house). In natural beings, this source of motion is contained within the being itself.^[107] Aristotle elaborates on this point when he addresses the faculties of the soul.

The various faculties of the soul, such as nutrition, movement (peculiar to animals), reason (peculiar to humans), sensation (special, common, and incidental) and so forth, when exercised, constitute the «second» actuality, or fulfillment, of the capacity to be alive. For example, someone who falls asleep, as opposed to someone who falls dead, can wake up and live their life, while the latter can no longer do so.

Aristotle identified three hierarchical levels of natural beings: plants, animals, and people, having three different degrees of soul: Bios (life), Zoë (animate life), and Psuchë (self-conscious life). For these groups, he identified three corresponding levels of soul, or biological activity: the nutritive activity of growth, sustenance and reproduction which all life shares (Bios); the self-willed motive activity and sensory faculties, which only animals and people have in common (Zoë); and finally «reason», of which people alone are capable (Pseuchë).

Aristotle’s discussion of the soul is in his work, De Anima (On the Soul). Although mostly seen as opposing Plato in regard to the immortality of the soul, a controversy can be found in relation to the fifth chapter of the third book: in this text both interpretations can be argued for, soul as a whole can be deemed mortal, and a part called «active intellect» or «active mind» is immortal and eternal.^[108] Advocates exist for both sides of the controversy, but it has been understood that there will be permanent disagreement about its final conclusions, as no other Aristotelian text contains this specific point, and this part of De Anima is obscure.^[109] Further, Aristotle states that the soul helps humans find the truth, and understanding the true purpose or role of the soul is extremely difficult.^[110]

Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafis[edit]

Following Aristotle, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn al-Nafis, an Arab physician, further elaborated upon the Aristotelian understanding of the soul and developed their own theories on the soul. They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and the Avicennian doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among the Scholastics. Some of Avicenna’s views on the soul include the idea that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of «The Ten Intellects», he viewed the human soul as the tenth and final intellect.^[111][112]

While he was imprisoned, Avicenna wrote his famous «Floating man» thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantial nature of the soul.^[113] He told his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argues that in this scenario one would still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance. This argument was later refined and simplified by René Descartes in epistemic terms, when he stated: «I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness.»^[114]

Avicenna generally supported Aristotle’s idea of the soul originating from the heart, whereas Ibn al-Nafis rejected this idea and instead argued that the soul «is related to the entirety and not to one or a few organs». He further criticized Aristotle’s idea whereby every unique soul requires the existence of a unique source, in this case the heart. Al-Nafis concluded that «the soul is related primarily neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive that soul,» and he defined the soul as nothing other than «what a human indicates by saying «I».^[115]

Thomas Aquinas[edit]

Following Aristotle (whom he referred to as «the Philosopher») and Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) understood the soul to be the first actuality of the living body. Consequent to this, he distinguished three orders of life: plants, which feed and grow; animals, which add sensation to the operations of plants; and humans, which add intellect to the operations of animals.

Concerning the human soul, his epistemological theory required that, since the knower becomes what he knows, the soul is definitely not corporeal—if it is corporeal when it knows what some corporeal thing is, that thing would come to be within it.^[116] Therefore, the soul has an operation which does not rely on a body organ, and therefore the soul can exist without a body. Furthermore, since the rational soul of human beings is a subsistent form and not something made of matter and form, it cannot be destroyed in any natural process.^[117] The full argument for the immortality of the soul and Aquinas’ elaboration of Aristotelian theory is found in Question 75 of the First Part of the Summa Theologica.

Aquinas affirmed in the doctrine of the divine effusion of the soul, the particular judgement of the soul after the separation from a dead body, and the final Resurrection of the flesh. He recalled two canons of the 4th-century De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus for which «the rational soul is not engendered by coition» (canon XIV)^[118] and «is one and the same soul in man, that both gives life to the body by being united to it, and orders itself by its own reasoning.»^[119] Moreover, he believed in a unique and tripartite soul, within which are distinctively present a nutritive, a sensitive and intellectual soul. The latter is created by God and is taken solely by human beings, includes the other two types of soul and makes the sensitive soul incorruptible.^[120]

Immanuel Kant[edit]

In his discussions of rational psychology, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) identified the soul as the «I» in the strictest sense, and argued that the existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved.

We cannot prove a priori the immateriality of the soul, but rather only so much: that all properties and actions of the soul cannot be recognized from materiality.

It is from the «I», or soul, that Kant proposes transcendental rationalization, but cautions that such rationalization can only determine the limits of knowledge if it is to remain practical.^[121]

Philosophy of mind[edit]

Gilbert Ryle’s ghost in the machine argument, which is a rejection of Descartes’s mind–body dualism, can provide a contemporary understanding of the soul/mind, and the problem concerning its connection to the brain/body.^[122]

Psychology[edit]

Soul belief prominently figues in Otto Rank’s work recovering the importance of immortality in the psychology of primitive, classical and modern interest in life and death. Rank’s work directly opposed the «scientific» psychology that concedes the possibility of the soul’s existence and postulates it as an object of research without really admitting that it exists. «Just as religion represents a psychological commentary on the social evolution of man, various psychologies represent our current attitudes toward spiritual belief. In the animistic era, psychologizing was a creating of the soul; in the religious era, it was a representing of the soul to one’s self; in our era of natural science it is a knowing of the individual soul.» ^[123] Rank’s «Seelenglaube» translates to «Soul Belief». Rank’s work had a significant influence on Ernest Becker’s understanding of a universal interest in immortality. In Denial of Death, Becker describes «soul» in terms of Kierkegaard’s use of «self» when he says, «what we call schizophrenia is an attempt by the symbolic self to deny the limitations of the finite body.»^[124]

† Kierkegaard’s use of «self» may be a bit confusing. He uses it to include
the symbolic self and the physical body. It is a synonym really for «total
personality» that goes beyond the person to include what we would now call
the «soul» or the «ground of being» out of which the created person sprang.

Science[edit]

According to Julien Musolino, the vast majority of scientists hold that the mind is a complex machine that operates on the same physical laws as all other objects in the universe.^[125] According to Musolino, there is currently no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the existence of the soul.^[125]

The search for the soul, however, is seen to have been instrumental in driving the understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the human body, particularly in the fields of cardiovascular and neurology.^[126] In the two dominant conflicting concepts of the soul – one seeing it to be spiritual and immortal, and the other seeing it to be material and mortal, both have described the soul as being located in a particular organ or as pervading the whole body.^[126]

Neuroscience[edit]

Neuroscience as an interdisciplinary field, and its branch of cognitive neuroscience particularly, operates under the ontological assumption of physicalism. In other words, it assumes that only the fundamental phenomena studied by physics exist. Thus, neuroscience seeks to understand mental phenomena within the framework according to which human thought and behavior are caused solely by physical processes taking place inside the brain, and it operates by the way of reductionism by seeking an explanation for the mind in terms of brain activity.^[127][128]

To study the mind in terms of the brain several methods of functional neuroimaging are used to study the neuroanatomical correlates of various cognitive processes that constitute the mind. The evidence from brain imaging indicates that all processes of the mind have physical correlates in brain function.^[129] However, such correlational studies cannot determine whether neural activity plays a causal role in the occurrence of these cognitive processes (correlation does not imply causation) and they cannot determine if the neural activity is either necessary or sufficient for such processes to occur. Identification of causation, and of necessary and sufficient conditions requires explicit experimental manipulation of that activity. If manipulation of brain activity changes consciousness, then a causal role for that brain activity can be inferred.^[130][131] Two of the most common types of manipulation experiments are loss-of-function and gain-of-function experiments. In a loss-of-function (also called «necessity») experiment, a part of the nervous system is diminished or removed in an attempt to determine if it is necessary for a certain process to occur, and in a gain-of-function (also called «sufficiency») experiment, an aspect of the nervous system is increased relative to normal.^[132] Manipulations of brain activity can be performed with direct electrical brain stimulation, magnetic brain stimulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation, psychopharmacological manipulation, optogenetic manipulation, and by studying the symptoms of brain damage (case studies) and lesions. In addition, neuroscientists are also investigating how the mind develops with the development of the brain.^[133]

Physics[edit]

Physicist Sean M. Carroll has written that the idea of a soul is incompatible with quantum field theory (QFT). He writes that for a soul to exist: «Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of ‘spirit particles’ and ‘spirit forces’ that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments.»^[134]

Quantum indeterminism has been invoked as an explanatory mechanism for possible soul/brain interaction, but neuroscientist Peter Clarke found errors with this viewpoint, noting there is no evidence that such processes play a role in brain function; Clarke concluded that a Cartesian soul has no basis from quantum physics.^{[135][need quotation to verify]}

Parapsychology[edit]

Some parapsychologists have attempted to establish, by scientific experiment, whether a soul separate from the brain exists, as is more commonly defined in religion rather than as a synonym of psyche or mind. Milbourne Christopher (1979) and Mary Roach (2010) have argued that none of the attempts by parapsychologists have yet succeeded.^[136][137]

Weight of the soul[edit]

In 1901 Duncan MacDougall conducted an experiment in which he made weight measurements of patients as they died. He claimed that there was weight loss of varying amounts at the time of death; he concluded the soul weighed 21 grams, based on measurements of a single patient and discarding conflicting results.^[138][139] The physicist Robert L. Park wrote that MacDougall’s experiments «are not regarded today as having any scientific merit» and the psychologist Bruce Hood wrote that «because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific.»^[140][141]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Batchelor, Stephen. (1998). Buddhism Without Beliefs. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Bellarmine, Robert (1902). «Sermon 47: The Value of the Soul.» . Sermons from the Latins. Benziger Brothers.
• Bremmer, Jan (1983). The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-03131-6. Retrieved 16 August 2007.
• Chalmers, David. J. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Christopher, Milbourne. (1979). Search for the Soul: An Insider’s Report on the Continuing Quest By Psychics & Scientists For Evidence of Life After Death. Thomas Y. Crowell, Publishers.
• Clarke, Peter (2014). «Neuroscience, Quantum Indeterminism and the Cartesian Soul». Brain and Cognition. 84 (1): 109–17. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2013.11.008. PMID 24355546. S2CID 895046.
• Hood, Bruce. (2009). Supersense: From Superstition to Religion – The Brain Science of Belief. Constable. ISBN 978-1-84901-030-6
• McGraw, John J. (2004). Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul. Aegis Press.
• Martin, Michael; Augustine, Keith. (2015). The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8108-8677-3
• Park, Robert L. (2009). Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13355-3
• Rohde, Erwin. (1925). Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd.
• Ryle, Gilbert. (1949) The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson.
• Spenard, Michael (2011) «Dueling with Dualism: the forlorn quest for the immaterial soul», essay. An historical account of mind-body duality and a comprehensive conceptual and empirical critique on the position. ISBN 978-0-578-08288-2
• Swinburne, Richard. (1997). The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Leibowitz, Aryeh. (2018). The Neshama: A Study of the Human Soul. Feldheim Publishers. ISBN 1-68025-338-7
• Kleivan, Inge; Sonne, B. (1985). «Arctic peoples». Eskimos. Greenland and Canada. Institute of Religious Iconography. Iconography of religions. Leiden, The Netherland): State University Groningen, via E.J. Brill. section VIII, fascicle 2. ISBN 90-04-07160-1.
• Gabus, Jean (1970). A karibu eszkimók (in Hungarian). Budapest: Gondolat Kiadó. Translation of the original: Gabus, Jean (1944). Vie et coutumes des Esquimaux Caribous. Libraire Payot Lausanne.

External links[edit]

• Quantum Theory Won’t Save The Soul
• What Science Really Says About the Soul by Stephen Cave
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Ancient Theories of the Soul
• The soul in Judaism at Chabad.org
• The Old Testament Concept of the Soul by Heinrich J. Vogel]
• Body, Soul and Spirit Article in the Journal of Biblical Accuracy
• Is Another Human Living Inside You?
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). «Soul» . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• «The Soul», BBC Radio 4 discussion with Richard Sorabji, Ruth Padel and Martin Palmer (In Our Time, 6 June 2002)

English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English soule, sowle, saule, sawle, from Old English sāwol (“soul, life, spirit, being”), from Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu, from Proto-Germanic *saiwalō (“soul”), of uncertain ultimate origin (see there for further information).

Cognate with Scots saul, sowel (“soul”), North Frisian siel, sial (“soul”), Saterland Frisian Seele (“soul”), West Frisian siel (“soul”), Dutch ziel (“soul”), German Seele (“soul”) Scandinavian homonyms seem to have been borrowed from Old Saxon *siala. Modern Danish sjæl, Swedish själ, Norwegian sjel. Icelandic sál may have come from Old English sāwol.

Alternative forms[edit]

• sowl (archaic)
• soule (obsolete)

Pronunciation[edit]

• enPR: sōl
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /səʊl/, [sɒʊɫ]
  • (New Zealand, General Australian) IPA^(key): /sɐʉl/, [sɒʊɫ]
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /soʊl/
• Rhymes: -əʊl
• Homophones: Seoul, sole, sowl

Noun[edit]

soul (countable and uncountable, plural souls)

1. (religion, folklore) The spirit or essence of a person usually thought to consist of one’s thoughts and personality, often believed to live on after the person’s death.
   • 1836, Hans Christian Andersen (translated into English by Mrs. H. B. Paull in 1872), The Little Mermaid

     «Among the daughters of the air,» answered one of them. «A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny. But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:

     No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.
2. The spirit or essence of anything.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.

   • 1928, Roosevelt, Franklin D., The Happy Warrior Alfred E. Smith‎^[1], Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC, →OL, pages 36-37:

     It is possible with only these qualities for a man to be a reasonably efficient President, but there is one thing more needed to make him a great President. It is that quality of soul which makes a man loved by little children, by dumb animals, that quality of soul which makes him a strong help to all those in sorrow or in trouble, that quality which makes him not merely admired, but loved by all the people — the quality of sympathetic understanding of the human heart, of real interest in one’s fellow men.

3. Life, energy, vigor.

   • 1725, [Edward Young], “Satire III. To the Right Honourable Mr. Dodington.”, in Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. In Seven Characteristical Satires, 4th edition, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson […], published 1741, →OCLC, page 52:

     That he vvants Algebra he muſt confeſs. / But not a ſoul to give our arms ſucceſs.

4. (music) Soul music.
5. A person, especially as one among many.
   • 18 January 1915, D. H. Lawrence, letter to William Hopkin

     I want to gather together about twenty souls and sail away from this world of war and squalor and found a little colony where there shall be no money but a sort of communism as far as necessaries of life go, and some real decency.

6. An individual life.

   Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.

7. (mathematics) A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.

Quotations[edit]

For quotations using this term, see Citations:soul.

Synonyms[edit]

• (spirit or essence of anything): crux, gist; See also Thesaurus:gist
• (a person): See also Thesaurus:person

Derived terms[edit]

Pages starting with “soul”.

[edit]

• mind
• spirit

Descendants[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

soul (third-person singular simple present souls, present participle souling, simple past and past participle souled)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To endow with a soul or mind.

   Synonyms: besoul, ensoul

2. To beg on All Soul’s Day.

   Coordinate term: trick-or-treat

   • 1981, Geoffrey Scard, Squire and tenant: life in rural Cheshire, 1760-1900, page 93:

     All Souls’ Day was celebrated by souling, a custom going back to pre-Reformation days: soul cakers and mummers toured the village begging for a soul cake — a plain, round, flat cake seasoned with spices.

Derived terms[edit]

• besoul
• dark night of the soul

Etymology 2[edit]

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

Verb[edit]

soul (third-person singular simple present souls, present participle souling, simple past and past participle souled)

1. (obsolete) To afford suitable sustenance.

   • 1741, unknown [formerly attributed to Daniel Defoe], The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, the British Amazon, commonly called Mother Ross: […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for R[ichard] Montagu, →OCLC, part II, page 76:

     During my Stay here, I was going to take Pot-Luck with Colonel Ingram, and accidentally meeting him in the Way, I told him I deſigned to ſoul a Plate with him, […]

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for soul in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

References[edit]

• soul at OneLook Dictionary Search
• soul in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• “soul”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams[edit]

• Luso-, luso-

Czech[edit]

Noun[edit]

soul m

1. soul (music style)

Further reading[edit]

• soul in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu

Finnish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈsou̯l/, [ˈs̠o̞u̯l]
• Rhymes: -oul
• Syllabification^(key): soul

Noun[edit]

soul

1. soul music

Declension[edit]

Inflection of soul (Kotus type 5/risti, no gradation)
nominative	soul	—
genitive	soulin	—
partitive	soulia	—
illative	souliin	—
	singular	plural
nominative	soul	—
accusative	nom.	soul	—
gen.	soulin
genitive	soulin	—
partitive	soulia	—
inessive	soulissa	—
elative	soulista	—
illative	souliin	—
adessive	soulilla	—
ablative	soulilta	—
allative	soulille	—
essive	soulina	—
translative	souliksi	—
instructive	—	—
abessive	soulitta	—
comitative	See the possessive forms below.

Possessive forms of soul (type risti)

first-person singular possessor singular plural nominative soulini — accusative nom. soulini — gen. soulini genitive soulini — partitive souliani — inessive soulissani — elative soulistani — illative souliini — adessive soulillani — ablative souliltani — allative soulilleni — essive soulinani — translative soulikseni — instructive — — abessive soulittani — comitative — — second-person singular possessor singular plural nominative soulisi — accusative nom. soulisi — gen. soulisi genitive soulisi — partitive souliasi — inessive soulissasi — elative soulistasi — illative souliisi — adessive soulillasi — ablative souliltasi — allative soulillesi — essive soulinasi — translative souliksesi — instructive — — abessive soulittasi — comitative — — first-person plural possessor singular plural nominative soulimme — accusative nom. soulimme — gen. soulimme genitive soulimme — partitive souliamme — inessive soulissamme — elative soulistamme — illative souliimme — adessive soulillamme — ablative souliltamme — allative soulillemme — essive soulinamme — translative souliksemme — instructive — — abessive soulittamme — comitative — — second-person plural possessor singular plural nominative soulinne — accusative nom. soulinne — gen. soulinne genitive soulinne — partitive soulianne — inessive soulissanne — elative soulistanne — illative souliinne — adessive soulillanne — ablative souliltanne — allative soulillenne — essive soulinanne — translative souliksenne — instructive — — abessive soulittanne — comitative — — third-person possessor singular plural nominative soulinsa — accusative nom. soulinsa — gen. soulinsa genitive soulinsa — partitive souliaan souliansa — inessive soulissaan soulissansa — elative soulistaan soulistansa — illative souliinsa — adessive soulillaan soulillansa — ablative souliltaan souliltansa — allative soulilleen soulillensa — essive soulinaan soulinansa — translative soulikseen souliksensa — instructive — — abessive soulittaan soulittansa — comitative — —

Anagrams[edit]

• Sulo, solu, sulo, ulos

French[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

See saoul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /su/
• Homophones: sou, souls, sous

Adjective[edit]

soul (feminine soule, masculine plural souls, feminine plural soules)

1. post-1990 spelling of soûl, itself an alternative form of saoul (“drunk”)

Derived terms[edit]

• souler

Etymology 2[edit]

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /sol/, /sul/

Noun[edit]

soul f (uncountable)

1. soul, soul music

Further reading[edit]

• “soul”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Hungarian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): [ˈsoːl] (phonetic respelling: szól)
• Hyphenation: soul
• Homophone: szól
• Rhymes: -oːl

Noun[edit]

soul (usually uncountable, plural soulok)

1. (music) soul music

Declension[edit]

Inflection (stem in -o-, back harmony)
	singular	plural
nominative	soul	soulok
accusative	soult	soulokat
dative	soulnak	souloknak
instrumental	soullal	soulokkal
causal-final	soulért	soulokért
translative	soullá	soulokká
terminative	soulig	soulokig
essive-formal	soulként	soulokként
essive-modal	—	—
inessive	soulban	soulokban
superessive	soulon	soulokon
adessive	soulnál	souloknál
illative	soulba	soulokba
sublative	soulra	soulokra
allative	soulhoz	soulokhoz
elative	soulból	soulokból
delative	soulról	soulokról
ablative	soultól	souloktól
non-attributive possessive — singular	soulé	souloké
non-attributive possessive — plural	souléi	soulokéi

Possessive forms of soul
possessor	single possession	multiple possessions
1st person sing.	soulom	souljaim
2nd person sing.	soulod	souljaid
3rd person sing.	soulja	souljai
1st person plural	soulunk	souljaink
2nd person plural	soulotok	souljaitok
3rd person plural	souljuk	souljaik

Derived terms[edit]

• soulzene

Italian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈsol/, (careful style) /ˈsowl/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ol, (careful style) -owl
• Hyphenation: (careful style) sóul

Noun[edit]

soul m or f (invariable)

1. soul music

References[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

• suol

Middle English[edit]

Noun[edit]

soul

1. Alternative form of soule

Old French[edit]

Adjective[edit]

soul m (oblique and nominative feminine singular soule)

1. Alternative form of sol

Declension[edit]

Polish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from English soul, from Middle English soule, sowle, saule, sawle, from Old English sāwol, from Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu, from Proto-Germanic *saiwalō.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /sɔwl/
• Rhymes: -ɔwl
• Syllabification: soul

Noun[edit]

soul m inan

1. soul music

Declension[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• soul in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• soul in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from English soul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /sow/
  • Homophone: sou (when pronounced with the /w/)

Noun[edit]

soul m (uncountable)

1. (music) soul music (a music genre combining gospel music, rhythm and blues and often jazz)

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English soul.

Adjective[edit]

soul m or f or n (indeclinable)

1. soul (music)

Declension[edit]

Spanish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈsoul/ [ˈsou̯l]
• Rhymes: -oul
• Syllabification: soul

Noun[edit]

soul m (uncountable)

1. soul, soul music

Further reading[edit]

• “soul”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

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The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is a self-aware ethereal substance particular to a unique living being. In these traditions the soul is thought to incorporate the inner essence of each living being, and to be the true basis for sentience. In distinction to spirit which may or may not be eternal, souls are usually (but not always as explained below) considered to be immortal and to pre-exist their incarnation in flesh.

The concept of the soul has strong links with notions of an afterlife, but opinions may vary wildly, even within a given religion, as to what may happen to the soul after the death of the body. Many within these religions and philosophies see the soul as immaterial, while others consider it to possibly have a material component, and some have even tried to establish the mass (weight) of the soul.

Etymologies

The current English word «soul» may have originated from the Old English sawol, documented in 970 AD^{[citation needed]}. «Sawol» has possible etymological links with a Germanic root from which we also get the word «sea». The old German word is called ‘se(u)la’, which means: belonging to the sea (ancient Germanic conceptions involved the souls of the unborn and of the dead «living» being part of a medium, similar to water), or perhaps, «living water» ^{[citation needed]}.

The word «soul» did not exist in the times of Jesus, Socrates or Aristotle, and so the quotations, interpretations and translations of the word «soul» from these sources, means that the word should be handled very carefully. One might go as far as saying that the word «soul», in the sense we use it today, did not exist in Hebrew or Aramaic, and only partly in Greek ^{[citation needed]}. Ancient Greeks sometimes referred to the soul as psyche (as in modern English psychology). Aristotle’s works in Latin translation, used the word anima (as in animated), which also means «breath». In the New Testament, the original word may sometimes better translate as «life», as in :

«For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?» (Matthew 16:26

)

The Latin root of the related word spirit, like anima, also expresses the idea of «breath». Likewise, the Biblical Hebrew word for ‘soul’ is nefesh, meaning life, or vital breath.

The various origins and usages demonstrate not only that what people call «soul» today has varied in meaning throughout history, but that the word and concept themselves have changed in their implications.

Philosophical views

The Ancient Greeks used the same word for ‘alive’ as for ‘ensouled’. So the earliest surviving Western philosophical] view might suggest that the soul makes living things alive.

Francis M. Cornford quotes Pindar in saying that the soul sleeps whilst the limbs are active, but when man is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals in many a dream «an award of joy or sorrow drawing near». ^[1]

Erwin Rohde writes that the early pre-Pythagorean belief was that the soul had no life when it departed from the body, and retired into Hades with no hope of returning to a body. ^[2]

Socrates and Plato

Plato, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, considered the soul as the essence of a person, being that which decides how we act. He considered this essence as an incorporeal occupant of our being. The Platonic soul comprises three parts:

1. the logos (mind, nous, superego, or reason)
2. the thymos (emotion, ego, or spiritedness)
3. the pathos (appetitive, id, or carnal)

Each of these has a function in a balanced and peaceful soul.

The logos equates to the mind. It corresponds to the charioteer, directing the balanced horses of appetite and spirit. It allows for logic to prevail, and for the optimisation of balance.

The thymos comprises our emotional motive, that which drives us to acts of bravery and glory. If left unchecked, it leads to hubris — the most fatal of all flaws in the Greek view.

The pathos equates to the appetite that drives humankind to seek out its basic bodily needs. When the passion controls us, it drives us to hedonism in all forms. In the Ancient Greek view, this is the basal and most feral state.

Aristotle

Aristotle, following Plato, defined the soul as the core essence of a being, but argued against its having a separate existence. For instance, if a knife had a soul, the act of cutting would be that soul, because ‘cutting’ is the essence of what it is to be a knife. Unlike Plato and the religious traditions, Aristotle did not consider the soul as some kind of separate, ghostly occupant of the body (just as we cannot separate the activity of cutting from the knife). As the soul, in Aristotle’s view, is an activity of the body, it cannot be immortal (when a knife is destroyed, the cutting stops). More precisely, the soul is the «first activity» of a living body. This is a state, or a potential for actual, or ‘second’, activity. «The axe has an edge for cutting» was, for Aristotle, analogous to «humans have bodies for rational activity,» and the potential for rational activity thus constituted the essence of a human soul. Aristotle used his concept of the soul in many of his works; the Nicomachean Ethics provides a good place to start to gain more understanding of his views.

Aristotle’s view appears to have some similarity to the Buddhist ‘no soul’ view (see below). For both, there is certainly no ‘separable immortal essence’.

Religious views

Bahá’í beliefs

The Bahá’í Faith affirm that «the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel.» ^[3]
Concerning the soul or spirit of human beings and its relationship to the physical body, Bahá’u’lláh explained:
«Know thou that the soul of man is exalted above, and is independent of all infirmities of body or mind. That a sick person showeth signs of weakness is due to the hindrances that interpose themselves between his soul and his body, for the soul itself remaineth unaffected by any bodily ailments. … When it leaveth the body, however, it will evince such ascendancy, and reveal such influence as no force on earth can equal … consider the sun which hath been obscured by the clouds. Observe how its splendor appeareth to have diminished, when in reality the source of that light hath remained unchanged. The soul of man should be likened unto this sun, and all things on earth should be regarded as his body. So long as no external impediment interveneth between them, the body will, in its entirety, continue to reflect the light of the soul, and to be sustained by its power. As soon as, however, a veil interposeth itself between them, the brightness of the light seemeth to lessen…. The soul of man is the sun by which his body is illumined, and from which it draweth its sustenance, and should be so regarded.» ^[4]

The soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body, but is, in fact, immortal. Bahá’u’lláh wrote:
«Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure.» ^[5]

Heaven can be seen partly as the soul’s state of nearness to God; and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually.^[6]

Bahá’u’lláh taught that individuals have no existence previous to their life here on earth. The soul’s evolution is always towards God and away from the material world. A human being spends nine months in the womb in preparation for entry into this physical life. During that nine-month period, the fetus acquires the physical tools (e.g., eyes, limbs, and so forth) necessary for existence in this world. Similarly, this physical world is like a womb for entry into the spiritual world.^[6] Our time here is thus a period of preparation during which we are to acquire the spiritual and intellectual tools necessary for life in the next world. The crucial difference is that, whereas physical development in the mother’s womb is involuntary, spiritual and intellectual development in this world depends strictly on conscious individual effort.^[6]

Buddhist beliefs

In Buddhism, it is acknowledges that there is a self (identity), however only a temporary one illustrated by experiences, therefore not the true nature (anatta).

Buddhism teaches that all things are impermanent, in a constant state of flux; all is transient, and no abiding state exists by itself. This applies to humanity, as much as to anything else in the cosmos; thus, there is no unchanging and abiding self. Our sense of «I» or «me» is simply a sense, belonging to the ever-changing entity, that (conventionally speaking) is us, our body, and mind. This expresses in essence the Buddhist principle of anatta (Pāli; Sanskrit: anātman).

Buddhist teaching holds that the delusion of a permanent, abiding self is one of the main root causes for human conflict on the emotional, social and political levels^{[citation needed]}. They add that understanding of anatta (or «not-self») provides an accurate description of the human condition, and that this understanding allows «us» to go beyond «our» mundane desires. Buddhists can speak in conventional terms of the «self» as a matter of convenience, but only under the conviction that ultimately «we» are changing «entities». In death, the body and mind disintegrate; if the disintegrating mind is still in the grip of delusion, it will cause the continuity of the consciousness to bounce back an arising mind to an awaiting being, that is, a fetus developing the ability to harbor consciousness. Thus, in some Buddhist sects^{[citation needed]}, a being that is born is neither entirely different, nor exactly the same, as it was prior to rebirth.

However, there are scholars, such as Shirō Matsumoto, who have noted a curious development in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, stemming from the Cittamatra and Vijnanavada schools in India: although this school of thought denies the permanent personal selfhood, it affirms concepts such as Buddha-nature, Tathagatagarbha, Rigpa, or «original nature». Matsumoto argues that these concepts constitute a non- or trans-personal self, and almost equate in meaning to the Hindu concept of Atman, although they differ in that Buddha-nature does not incarnate.

In some Mahayana Buddhist schools, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, the view is that there are 3 minds: Very-Subtle-Mind, which isn’t disintegrated in incarnation-death; Subtle-Mind, which is disintegrated in death, and is «dreaming-mind» or «unconscious-mind»; and Gross-Mind. Gross-Mind doesn’t exist when one is sleeping, so it is more impermanent even than Subtle-Mind, which doesn’t exist in death. Very-Subtle-Mind, however, does continue, and when it «catches on» or coincides with phenomena again, a new Subtle-Mind emerges, with its own personality/assumptions/habits and that someone/entity experiences the karma on that continuum that is ripening then.

One should note the polarity in Tibetan Buddhism between shes-pa (the principle of consciousness) and rig-pa (pure consciousness equal to Buddha-nature). The concept of a person as a tulku provides even more controversy. A tulku has, due to heroic austerities and esoteric training (or due to innate talent combined with great subtle-mind commitment in the moment of death), achieved the goal of transferring personal «identity» (or nature/commitment) from one rebirth to the next (for instance, Tibetans consider the Dalai Lama a tulku). The mechanics behind this work as follows: although Buddha-nature does not incarnate, the individual self comprises skandhas, or components, that undergo rebirth. For an ordinary person, skandhas cohere in a way that dissolves upon the person’s death. So, elements of the transformed personality re-incarnate, but they lose the unity that constitutes personal selfhood for a specific person. In the case of tulkus, however, they supposedly achieve sufficient «crystallization» of skandhas in such a manner that the skandhas do not entirely «disentangle» upon the tulku’s death; rather, a directed reincarnation occurs. In this new birth, the tulku possesses a continuity of personal identity/commitment, rooted in the fact that the consciousness or shes-pa (which equates to a type of skandha called vijnana) has not dissolved after death, but has sufficient durability to survive in repeated births. Since, however, subtle-mind emerges in incarnation, and gross-mind emerges in periods of sufficient awareness within some incarnations, there isn’t really any contradiction: very-subtle-mind’s original nature, that is irreducible mind / clarity whose function is knowing, doesn’t have any «body», and the coarser minds that emerge «on» it while it drifts/wanders/dreams aren’t continuous. Any continuity of awareness achieved by tulku is simply a greater continuity than is achieved by/in a normal incarnation, as it continues across several, is only a difference of degree.

Many modern Buddhists, particularly in Western countries, reject the concept of rebirth or reincarnation as incompatible with the concept of anatta, and typically take an agnostic stance toward the concept. Stephen Batchelor, notably, discusses this issue in his book Buddhism Without Beliefs. However, the question arises: if a self does not exist, who thinks/lives now? Some Buddhist sects hold the view that thought itself thinks: if you remove the thought, there’s no thinker (self) to be found. A detailed introduction to this, and to other basic Buddhist teachings, appears in What the Buddha taught by the Buddhist monk Walpola Rahula.

Others see the Buddha’s warning that those who believe that a permanent self does not exist are just as gravely mistaken as those who believe that one does, and understand that He taught that both views were erroneous and could not capture the actual truth of the matter, speculations along those lines would only cause suffering rather than its removal. (See: neti neti).

Some say that the self endures after death, some say it perishes. In the Theravada Buddhist view, both are wrong and their error is most grievous. Theravadins believe that if one says the self is perishable, the fruit they strive for will perish too, and at some time there will be no hereafter. Good and evil would be indifferent. This salvation from selfishness is without merit. Theravada Buddhism’s stance on many beliefs of soul after Death are explained in the Brahmajala Sutta.

Christian beliefs

In Christianity, the New Testament teaches that when a person dies their soul will be judged by God, who sees all the wrong and right that they have done during their lives. If they have repented (to turn away from) of their sins and put their trust in Jesus Christ (the one who took the punishment for our sins) before death, they will inherit eternal life in «Heaven» and enjoy eternal fellowship with God. If they have not repented of their sins, they will go to «Hell», and suffer eternal separation from God.

Various opinions

Most Christians regard the soul as the immortal essence of a human — the seat or locus of human will, understanding, and personality — and that after death, God either rewards or punishes the soul. Different Christian groups dispute whether this reward/punishment depends upon doing good deeds, or merely upon believing in God and in Jesus.

Christian belief also holds that the soul cannot be bought; this is why money is not an accurate measurement of spirituality. You can be very wealthy, and still be «poor, and blind and naked» (Revelation). The notion that the salvation of the soul cannot be earned by good deeds can appear to contradict Biblical teaching, when Christians are instructed to «Love your neighbour as yourself» as the second most important command. However, scripture holds that only by grace directly from God the father are we «saved», and to make the robe of the soul clean requires only an acceptance of this grace, which incidentally is a neutral deed, neither good nor evil.

Many Christian scholars hold, as Aristotle did, that «to attain any assured knowledge of the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world». Augustine, one of the most influential early Christian thinkers, described the soul as «a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body». The apostle Paul said that the «body wars against» the soul, and that «I buffet my body», to keep it under control. Philosopher Anthony Quinton said the soul is a «series of mental states connected by continuity of character and memory, [and] is the essential constituent of personality. The soul, therefore, is not only logically distinct from any particular human body with which it is associated; it is also what a person is». Richard Swinburne, a Christian philosopher of religion at Oxford University, wrote that «it is a frequent criticism of substance dualism that dualists cannot say what souls are…. Souls are immaterial subjects of mental properties. They have sensations and thoughts, desires and beliefs, and perform intentional actions. Souls are essential parts of human beings…»

The origin of the soul has provided a sometimes vexing question in Christianity; the major theories put forward include Creationism, traducianism and pre-existence.

Other Christian beliefs differ:

• A few Christian groups do not believe in the soul, and hold that people cease to exist, both mind and body, at death; they claim however, that God will recreate the minds and bodies of believers in Jesus at some future time, the «end of the world.»
• Another minority of Christians believe in the soul, but don’t regard it as inherently immortal. This minority also believes the life of Christ brings immortality, but only to believers.
• Medieval Christian thinkers often assigned to the soul attributes such as thought and imagination, as well as faith and love: this suggests that the boundaries between «soul» and «mind» can vary in different interpretations.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses view the Hebrew word NePHeSH in its literal concrete meaning of breath, making a person who is animated by the spirit of God into a living BREATHER, rather than a body containing an invisible entity such as the majority concept of Soul. Spirit is seen to be anything powerful and invisible symbolized by the hebrew word RuaCH which has the literal meaning of wind. Thus Soul is used by them to mean a person rather than an invisible core entity associated with a spirit or a force, which leaves the body at or after death. (Gen.2:7; Ezek.18:4, KJV). When a person dies his Soul leaves him meaning that he has stopped breathing and his fate for any future existence rests solely with God who they believe has the power to re-create the whole person and restore their existence. This is in line with their belief that Hell represents the grave and the possibility of eternal death for unbelievers rather than eternal torment. See Strong’s Concordance under «soul», with Biblical meaning that animals and people are souls, that souls are not immortal, but die; soul means the person; life as a person, etc.
• The soul sleep theory states that the soul goes to «sleep» at the time of death, and stays in this quiescent state until the last judgment.
• The «absent from the body, present with the Lord» theory states that the soul at the point of death, immediately becomes present at the end of time, without experiencing any time passing between.
• The «purgatory» theory states that the soul, if imperfect, spends a period of time purging or cleansing, before becoming ready for the end of time.
• The present Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the soul as «the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God’s image: ‘soul’ signifies the spiritual principle in man.»
• Swedenborgianism teaches that each person’s soul is created by the Lord at the same time as the physical body is developed, that the soul is the person himself or herself, and that the soul is eternal, and has an eternal spiritual body, that is substantial without being material. After the death of the body, the person becomes immediately conscious in the spiritual world.
• Some minorities beleive that a soul is what keeps the spirit alive (thinking and feeling) and when the soul is destroyed on death leaving the spirit dorment.

In favor of a conscious non-material entity («soul») that survives bodily death

Some traditional Christians argue that the Bible teaches the survival of a conscious self after death. They interpret this as an intermediate state, before the deceased unite with their Resurrection bodies and restore the psychosomatic unity that existed from conception, and which death disrupts. Amongst others these Christians point out:

• Rachel’s death in Genesis 35:18 equates with her soul (Hebrew nephesh) departing. And when Elijah prays in 1 Kings 17:21 for the return of a widow’s boy to life, he entreats, «O LORD my God, I pray you, let this child’s nephesh come into him again». So death meant that something called nephesh (or «soul») became separated from the body, and life could return when this soul returned.
• Jesus told the repentant thief on the cross, «I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise» (Luke 23:43). Interpretation: that very day, the thief will in a conscious way have fellowship with Christ in Paradise, despite the apparent destruction of his body. According to the apostle Peter, Jesus descended (upon His death) into Hades, which could not hold Him, and led the souls of the righteous dead (including the thief on the cross) which were imprisoned in Paradise (a compartment of Hades, which was reserved for those righteous dead) out of captivity, and «led captivity captive» (thus emptying Paradise, according to the apostle Paul), who also claimed that Jesus was King not only by birth, but «by nature of an indestructible life» (in the letter to the Hebrews, if it was written by Paul). Afterwards, in John’s vision of Revelation, Jesus appeared to John and claimed that He had «the keys of Hades».
• Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus, who were both still conscious at the same time as the rich man’s brothers, who lived on. This scenario preceded Jesus taking the souls of Paradise with Him to heaven, therefore Lazarus remains in Paradise. The rich man stood in another compartment of Sheol where he could see Lazarus, but could never cross over. The patriarch Abraham comforted Lazarus, whereas the rich man remained in torment. Jesus said, «Truly, truly, how difficult it is for a rich man to enter into Heaven,» (although Lazarus was not there yet).

Christian Gnosticism: Valentinus

In early years of Christianity, the Gnostic Christian Valentinus of Valentinius (circa 100 — circa 153) proposed a version of spiritual psychology that accorded with numerous other «perennial wisdom» doctrines. He conceived the human being as a triple entity, consisting of body (soma, hyle), soul (psyche) and spirit (pneuma). This equates exactly to the division one finds in St. Paul’s Epistle to Thessalonians I, but enriched: Valentinus considered that all humans possess semi-dormant «spiritual seed» (sperma pneumatikon) which, in spiritually developed Christians, can unite with spirit, equated with Angel Christ. Evidently his spiritual seed corresponds precisely to shes-pa in Tibetan Buddhism, jiva in Vedanta, ruh in Hermetic Sufism or soul-spark in other traditions, and Angel Christ to Higher Self in modern transpersonal psychologies, Atman in Vedanta or Buddha nature in Mahayana Buddhism. In Valentinus’ opinion, spiritual seed, the ray from Angel Christ, returns to its source. This is true resurrection (as Valentinus himself wrote in The Gospel of Truth: «People who say they will first die and then arise are mistaken. If they do not receive resurrection while they are alive, once they have died they will receive nothing.»). In Valentinus’ vision of life human bodies go to dust, soul-sparks or spiritual seeds unite (in realised Gnostics) with their Higher Selves/Angel Christ and the soul proper, carrier of psychological functions and personalities (emotions, memory, rational faculties, imagination,…) will survive — but will not go to Pleroma or Fullness (the source of all where resurrected seeds that have realised their beings as Angels Christ return to). The souls stay in «the places that are in the middle», the worlds of Psyche. In time, after numerous purifications, the souls receive «spiritual flesh», i.e. a resurrection body. This division appears rather puzzling, but not dissimilar to Kabbalah, where neshamah goes to the source and ruach is, undestructed and indestructible, but unredeemed, relegated to a lower world. Similarly, according to Valentinus, complete resurrection occurs only after the end of Time (in the Christian worldview), when transfigured souls who have acquired spiritual flesh finally re-unite with the perfect, individual Angel Christ, residing in the Pleroma. Valentinus sees this as final salvation.

Many non-denominational Christians, and indeed many people who ostensibly subscribe to denominations having clear-cut dogma on the concept of soul, take an «à la carte» approach to the belief, that is, they judge each issue on what they see as its merits and juxtapose different beliefs from different branches of Christianity, from other religions, and from their understanding of science.

See also Christian eschatology.

Hindu beliefs

main articles: Atman (Hinduism), Jiva

In Hinduism, the Sanskrit words most closely corresponding to soul are «Jiva«, meaning the individual soul or personality, and «Atman», which can also mean soul or even God. The Atman is seen as the portion of Brahman within us. Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the soul. For example, advaita or non-dualistic conception of the soul accords it union with Brahman, the absolute uncreated (roughly, the Godhead), in eventuality or in pre-existing fact. Dvaita or dualistic concepts reject this, instead identifying the soul as a different and incompatible substance.

The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most significant puranic scriptures, refers to the spiritual body or soul as Purusha (see also Sankhya philosophy). The Purusha is part and parcel of God, is unchanging (is never born and never dies), is indestructible, and, though essentially indivisible, can be described as having three characteristics:

(i) Sat (truth or existence)

(ii) Chit (consciousness or knowledge)

(iii) Ananda (bliss)

Islamic beliefs

According to the Qur’an of Islam (15:29), the creation of man involves Allah «breathing» a soul into him. This intangible part of an individual’s existence is «pure» at birth and has the potential of growing and achieving nearness to God if the person leads a righteous life. At death the person’s soul transitions to an eternal afterlife of bliss, peace and unending spiritual growth (Qur’an 66:8, 39:20). This transition can be pleasant (Heaven) or unpleasant (Hell) depending on the degree to which a person has developed or destroyed his or her soul during life (Qur’an 91:7-10).

In Sufism, Islamic mysticism, elaborate doctrines on the soul have developed, as explained in the article on Sufi psychology

Jainist beliefs

Jainists believe in a jiva, an immortal essence of a living being analogous to a soul, subject to the illusion of maya and evolving through many incarnations from mineral to vegetable to animal, its accumulated karma determining the form of its next birth.

Jewish beliefs

Jewish views of the soul begin with the book of Genesis, in which verse 2:7 states, «the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.» (New JPS)

The Hebrew Bible offers no systematic definition of a soul; various descriptions of the soul exist in classical rabbinic literature.

Saadia Gaon, in his Emunoth ve-Deoth 6:3, explained classical rabbinic teaching about the soul. He held that the soul comprises that part of a person’s mind which constitutes physical desire, emotion, and thought.

Maimonides, in his The Guide to the Perplexed, explained classical rabbinic teaching about the soul through the lens of neo-Aristotelian philosophy, and viewed the soul as a person’s developed intellect, which has no substance.

Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism) saw the soul as having three elements. The Zohar, a classic work of Jewish mysticism, posits that the human soul has three elements, the nefesh, ru’ah, and neshamah. A common way of explaining these three parts follows:

• Nefesh — the lower or animal part of the soul. It links to instincts and bodily cravings. It is found in all humans, and enters the physical body at birth. It is the source of one’s physical and psychological nature.

The next two parts of the soul are not implanted at birth, but are slowly created over time; their development depends on the actions and beliefs of the individual. They are said to only fully exist in people awakened spiritually:

• Ruach — the middle soul, or spirit. It contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil. In modern parlance, it equates to psyche or ego-personality.

• Neshamah — the higher soul, Higher Self or super-soul. This distinguishes man from all other life forms. It relates to the intellect, and allows man to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife. This part of the soul is provided both to Jew and non-Jew alike at birth. It allows one to have some awareness of the existence and presence of God. In the Zohar, after death Nefesh disintegrates, Ruach is sent to a sort of intermediate zone where it is submitted to purification and enters in «temporary paradise», while Neshamah returns to the source, the world of Platonic ideas, where it enjoys «the kiss of the beloved». Supposedly after resurrection, Ruach and Neshamah, soul and spirit re-unite in a permanently transmuted state of being.

The Raaya Meheimna, a Kabbalistic tractate always published with the Zohar, posits two more parts of the human soul, the chayyah and yehidah. Gershom Scholem wrote that these «were considered to represent the sublimest levels of intuitive cognition, and to be within the grasp of only a few chosen individuals»:

• Chayyah — The part of the soul that allows one to have an awareness of the divine life force itself.

• Yehidah — the highest plane of the soul, in which one can achieve as full a union with God as is possible.

Both Rabbinic and kabbalistic works also posit a few additional, non-permanent states to the soul that people can develop on certain occasions. These extra souls, or extra states of the soul, play no part in any afterlife scheme, but are mentioned for completeness.

• Ruach HaKodesh — a state of the soul that makes prophecy possible. Since the age of classical prophecy passed, no one receives the soul of prophecy any longer.

• Neshamah Yeseira — The supplemental soul that a Jew experiences on Shabbat. It makes possible an enhanced spiritual enjoyment of the day. This exists only while one observes Shabbat; it can be lost and gained depending on one’s observance.

• Neshamah Kedosha — Provided to Jews at the age of majority (13 for boys, 12 for girls), and related to the study and fulfillment of the Torah commandments. It exists only when one studies and follows Torah; it can be lost and gained depending on one’s study and observance.

For more detail on Jewish beliefs about the soul see Jewish eschatology.

Other religious beliefs and views

In Egyptian Mythology, an individual was believed to be made up of various elements, some physical and some spiritual. See the article Egyptian soul for more details.

These are the two parts which the ancient Chinese believed constitute every person’s soul. The p‘o is the visible personality indissolubly attached to the body, while the hun is its more ethereal complement also interpenetrating the body, but not of necessity always tied to it. The hun in its wanderings may be either visible or invisible; if the former, it appears in the guise of its original body, which actually may be far away lying in a trance-like state tenanted by the p‘o. And not only is the body duplicated under these conditions, but also the garments that clothe it. Should the hun stay away permanently, death results.

Some transhumanists believe that it will become possible to perform mind transfer, either from one human body to another, or from a human body to a computer. Operations of this type (along with teleportation), raise philosophical questions related to the concept of the Soul.

Crisscrossing specific religions, the phenomenon of therianthropy and belief in the existence of otherkin also occur. One can perhaps better describe these as phenomena rather than as beliefs, since people of varying religion, ethnicity, or nationality may believe in them. Therianthropy involves the belief that a person or his soul has a spiritual, emotional, or mental connection with an animal. Such a belief may manifest itself in many forms, and many explanations for it often draw on a person’s religious beliefs. Otherkin hold similar beliefs: they generally see their souls are entirely non-human, and usually not of this world.

Another fairly large segment of the population, not necessarily favoring organized religion, simply label themselves as «spiritual» and hold that both humans and all other living creatures have souls. Some further believe the entire universe has a cosmic soul as a spirit or unified consciousness. Such a conception of the soul may link with the idea of an existence before and after the present one, and one could consider such a soul as the spark, or the self, the «I» in existence that feels and lives life.

Some believe souls in some way «echo» to the edges of this universe, or even to multiple universes with compiled multiple possibilities, each presented with a slightly different energy version of itself. The science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, for example, has explored such ideas.

In Surat Shabda Yoga, the soul is considered to be an exact replica and spark of the Divine. The purpose of Surat Shabd Yoga is to realize one’s True Self as soul (Self-Realization), True Essence (Spirit-Realization) and True Divinity (God-Realization) while living in the physical body.

Gurdjieff taught that man has no soul. Rather, man must create a soul while incarnate, whose substance could withstand the shock of death. Without a soul, Gurdjieff taught, man will «die like a dog.»

Pantheism

Main article: Pantheism

According to the pantheistic view that Gnosticism follows (combining pantheism with monotheism like some Christian Gnostics, being clearly visible in Gospel of Thomas, or rejecting monotheism completely in favor of pantheism), Soul is synonymous with Mind, and emanates (since it is non-dimensional, or trans-dimensional) from the Spirit (the essence that can manifest itself through any level in pantheistic hierarchy/holarchy — as a mind/soul of a single cell (with very primitive, elemental consciousness), a human or animal mind/soul (with consciousness on a level of organic synergy of an individual human or animal), or a (superior) mind/soul with synergetically extremely complex and sophisticated consciousness of whole galaxies involving all sub-levels. Spirit (essence) manifests as — Soul/Mind. And the (non-physical) Soul/Mind is a ‘driver’ of the body. Therefore, the body, including the brain, is just a ‘vehicle’ for the physical world (if we, for example, have a whole planet as a ‘body’ then its brain is the synergetic super-brain that involves all the brains of species with a brain, on that planet). ^{[citation needed]}

Science and the soul

Western science and medicine seeks naturalistic accounts of the observable natural world. This stance is known as methodological naturalism[4], which is silent on the question of whether non-material or supernatural entities, such as the soul, can or do exist as distinct from natural entities. Scientists, therefore, investigate the soul as a human belief or as concept that shapes cognition and understanding of the world (see Memetics), rather than as an entity in and of itself.

When modern scientists speak of the soul outside of this cultural and psychological context, it is generally as a poetic synonym for mind. Francis Crick’s book The Astonishing Hypothesis, for example, has the subtitle, «The scientific search for the soul». Crick holds the position that one can learn everything knowable about the human soul by studying the workings of the human brain. Depending on one’s belief regarding the relationship between the soul and the mind, then, the findings of neuroscience may be relevant to one’s understanding of the soul.

A search of the PubMed research literature database shows the following numbers of articles with the indicated term in the title:

1. brain – 167,244
2. consciousness – 2,918 (842, 29%, of these articles also include “brain” in the database entry)
3. soul — 552 (40, 7%, of these articles also include “brain” in the database entry. Many of these articles deal with medical ethics issue such as the implications of religious beliefs on decisions about life support for people in persistent vegetative states)

An oft-encountered analogy is that the brain is to computer hardware as the mind is to computer software. The idea of the mind as software has led some scientists to use the word «soul» to emphasize their belief that the human mind has powers beyond or at least qualitatively different from what artificial software can do. Roger Penrose expounds this position in The Emperor’s New Mind[5]. He posits that the mind is in fact not like a computer as generally understood, but rather a quantum computer, that can do things impossible on a classical computer, such as decide the halting problem. Some have located the soul in this possible difference between the mind and a classical computer.

Attempted demonstrations of the soul as distinct from the mind

During the late 19th and first half 20th century, researchers attempted to weigh people who were known to be dying, and record their weight accurately at the time of death. As an example, Dr. Duncan MacDougall, in the early 1900s, sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the soul departed the body upon death. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material and measurable. These experiments are widely considered to have had little if any scientific merit, and although MacDougall’s results varied considerably from 21 grams, for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul’s weight. Experiments such as MacDougall’s have not been repeated with current precision equipment and research tools, and snopes.com concludes of one researcher that:

«MacDougall’s results were flawed because the methodology used to harvest them was suspect, the sample size far too small, and the ability to measure changes in weight imprecise. For this reason, credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams. His postulations on this topic are a curiousity, but nothing more.»

Source and details: http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

Researchers, most notably Ian Stevenson and Brian Weiss have studied reports of children talking about past-life experiences. Any evidence that these experiences were in fact real would require a change in scientific understanding of the mind or would support some notions of the soul.

Research on the concept of the soul

In his book Consilience, E. O. Wilson took note that sociology has identified belief in a soul as one of the universal human cultural elements. Wilson suggested that biologists need to investigate how human genes predispose people to believe in a soul.

Daniel Dennett has championed the idea that the human survival strategy depends heavily on adoption of the intentional stance, a behavioral strategy that predicts the actions of others based on the expectation that they have a mind like one’s own (see theory of mind). Mirror neurons in brain regions such as Broca’s area may facilitate this behavioral strategy. The intentional stance, Dennett suggests, has proven so successful that people tend to apply it to all aspects of human experience, thus leading to animism and to other conceptualizations of soul. But as several theologians and philosophers have noted (e.g. Keith Sutherland), claims by Dennett and his ilk are prompted by the philosophical agenda of pure materialism. One counter-argument points out that just because the brain has regions that deal with colour and other aspects of vision, one does not argue that the genes produce an area to promote the illusion of a blue sky. By analogy, if there is a ‘God sense’ just as there is a sense of vision, it seems to argue for the objective existence of an extra-mundane reality. Finally, claims of genetic determinism have suffered a serious blow after the human genome project reduced the number of genes to fewer than 25,000. There is thus no longer sufficient information content in the genome to determine such details. Dennett has been accused by his arch-rival in philospy, John Searle, of implying that only he amongst modern philosophers does useful research, whilst others such as Searle philosophise into a vacuum. This self-praise has resulted in Dennet being widely seen by the media as the sole researcher of the soul. However, David Chalmers might make a stronger claim for this, as he has by calling attention to the existence of the hard problem of consciousness pointed out the yawning gap between physicalist research and the subjective homonculus or soul.

Other uses of the term

• Popular usage often describes experiences that evoke deep emotions as «touching the soul».
• Soulmates are people who one believes are destined to be found and become close to in this lifetime.
• Soul (music) is a kind of modern music
• «Soul nurtured and was nurtured by the Black Man in America.» (Mississippi John Hurt)
• Stealing souls and using their energy to fuel some sort of doomsday weapon or other «great machine» is a common plot device in some types of fiction (particularly science-fiction).
• Seele, the German form of the word, is the name for the council in Neon Genesis Evangelion.

See also

• Soul symbol
• Ekam
• Ghost
• Spirit
• vitalism
• Ego
• Philosophical zombie

Footnotes

Movie

• Ghost (USA, 1990) with Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore.
• White Noise (USA, 2005) with Michael Keaton.
• 21 Grams: Regards the urban legend that the body loses twenty-one grams of weight at death, this weight surmised to be the soul.

Additional references

• Batchelor, Stephen. Buddhism Without Belief — aha.
• Cornford, Francis, M., Greek Religious Thought, 1950.
• Rohde, Erwin, Psyche, 1928.
• Swinburne (1997). The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Stevenson (1975). Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Volume I: Ten Cases in India. University Press of Virginia
• Stevenson (1974). Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia
• Stevenson (1983). Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Volume IV: Twelve Cases in Thailand and Burma. University Press of Virginia
• Stevenson (1997). Reincarnation and Biology : A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects. Praeger Publishers

Further reading

• Search for the Soul by Milbourne Christopher, Thomas Y. Crowell Publishers, 1979

• Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul by John J. McGraw, Aegis Press, 2004

• Bering, J.M. (2006). The folk psychology of souls. In Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Cambridge University Press. Full text

External links

• Articles and Forums at Spiritual.com.au
• Islam Way Online — Your Religion and Spirituality Portal Concrete ways to nourish the soul
• Our Real Identity: The Science of the Soul Summary from a lecture at the London School of Economics by H.G. Bhuta Bhavana dasa, a Hindu brahmin
• The Dictionary Definition of soul
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Ancient Theories of the Soul
• Psychobiology of Soul A stable experience of integration and connectedness that some people call Soul
• Therianthropy overview
• What Is Man
• Dr. Ian Stevenson: Scientific Evidence for Reincarnation
• Official Website
• The soul in Islam
• Soul and spirit in Islam
• Usage of the term soul (nafs) in the Qur’an
• The sould in Judaism at chabad.org

ar:روح
cs:Duše
da:Sjæl
de:Seele
es:Alma
eo:Animo
fr:Âme
gd:Anam
hr:Duša
io:Anmo
id:Jiwa
he:נשמה
lv:Dvēsele
hu:Lélek
nl:Ziel
no:Sjel
nn:Sjel
pt:Alma
ru:Душа
simple:Soul
sk:Duša
fi:Sielu
sv:Själ
uk:Душа
zh:灵魂

Soul is a word used to translate the Greek term (ψυχή psychē), meaning «life, spirit, consciousness». The Greek verb from which the word derives means «to cool, to blow» and therefore refers to the vital breath, the animating principle in humans and other animals (the Latin term being anima from which the word «animal» is derived.

In the Theosophical literature human beings are described as being composed of seven principles, three of which are regarded as «souls.» In 1883 A. P. Sinnett described them as follows:^[1]

4. Animal Soul. . . . . . Kama Rupa.

5. Human Soul. . . . . . Manas.

6. Spiritual Soul. . . . . Buddhi.

In early Theosophical literature there is also occasional mention to a «vital soul» which generally referred to the life-principle, either in its universal or individual aspect.

Vital soul

In some of her writings H. P. Blavatsky relates the vital soul to the biblical «breath of life.» This, according to her, does not correspond to the immortal Spirit in human beings (Ruach), but rather to Nephesh, the vital principle present in every living creature.^[2]

In a wider sense, however, the vital soul is seen as a universal vital principle pervading all matter:

Each object in nature has an objective exterior, a vital soul.^[3]

It is the informing, ever-present moving-power and life-principle, the vital soul of the suns, moons, planets, and even of our Earth.^[4]

In the Cosmological Notes the vital soul is also regarded as a universal vivifying principle, called Zhihna (or Zhima) in Tibetan, which is the source of living matter:

We say that Zhima being positive, and Zhi-gyu [gyu (material) earth in this sense] negative, it is only when the two come in contact as the former is brought to act upon the latter, that organised, living, self-acting matter is produced.^[5]

Finally, in a more individual sense, the vital soul may refer to prāṇa, or even to its vehicle, the liṅga-śarīra.^[6]

See also: Prana.

Animal soul

This term in Theosophy is generally applied to the fourth principle in human beings (kāma), although in some occasions it refers to the incarnated ray of fifth principle, the lower manas or lower mind, which in most people act in close association with kāma.

In October 1881 A. O. Hume defines the animal soul as the combination of the «astral body (Liṅga-śarīra), the «astral shape» (Kāmarūpa), and the «animal or physical intelligence,» referring to the Lower manas. A number of references to the animal soul in the The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett are based on this classification.

In December 1881 H. P. Blavatsky wrote about the «animal soul» as being the «kama-rupa» of a living man,^[7] while in January 1882, T. Subba Row speaks of it as the «physical intelligence.»^[8]

After Sinnett’s publication of the Esoteric Buddhism in 1883 the animal soul is generally regarded as the fourth principle, kāma.

See also Kama.

Human soul

A. P. Sinnett, in his book Esoteric Buddhism, decided to call Manas the Human Soul:^[9]

In the Theosophist for October, 1881, when the first hints about the septenary constitution of man were given out, the fifth principle was called the animal soul, as contra-distinguished from the sixth or “spiritual soul ;” but though this nomenclature sufficed to mark the required distinction, it degraded the fifth principle, which is essentially the human principle.^[10]

Mme. Blavatsky retained this meaning when writing for the public.^[11] According to her, the human soul has to aspects:

In its turn the former (the personal or human soul) is a compound in its highest form, of spiritual aspirations, volitions, and divine love; and in its lower aspect, of animal desires and terrestrial passions imparted to it by its associations with its vehicle, the seat of all these. It thus stands as a link and a medium between the animal nature of man which its higher reason seeks to subdue, and his divine spiritual nature to which it gravitates, whenever it has the upper hand in its struggle with the inner animal.^[12]

See also: Ego and Manas.

Spiritual soul

H. P. Blavatsky talks about the spiritual soul as being «irrational». She explained:

Irrational in the sense that as a pure emanation of the Universal mind it can have no individual reason of its own on this plane of matter, but like the Moon, who borrows her light from the Sun and her life from the Earth, so Buddhi, receiving its light of Wisdom from Atma, gets its rational qualities from Manas. Per se, as something homogeneous, it is devoid of attributes.^[13]

See also: Buddhi.

Online resources

Articles and pamphlets

• Soul at Theosopedia
• The Birth and Evolution of the Soul, Part I and Part II by Annie Besant
• Proofs of the Existence of the Soul by Annie Besant

Audio

• The Radiant Soul of Man by Geoffrey Hodson
• The Undying Reincarnating Spiritual Self by Geoffrey Hodson

Notes