The origin 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)

The Modern English word soul, derived from Old English sáwol, sáwel which means immortal principle in man, was first attested in the 8th century poem Beowulf v. 2820 and in the Vespasian Psalter 77.

What does the word soul mean in Hebrew?

nephesh

Is the spirit and soul the same?

While the two words are often used interchangeably, the primary distinction between soul and spirit in man is that the soul is the animate life, or the seat of the senses, desires, affections, and appetites. The spirit is that part of us that connects, or refuses to connect, to God.

What is opposite of Soul?

soul. Antonyms: soullessness, irrationality, unintellectuality, deadness, unfeelingness, spiritlessness, coldness, mind-issues, nonentity, nullity. Synonyms: spirit, vital principle, life, reason, intellect, vitality, fire, leader, inspirer, energy, courage, fervor, affection, feeling, being, person, man.

What word means beautiful inside and out?

alluring, appealing, attractive, charming, comely, delightful, drop-dead (slang) exquisite, fair, fine, glamorous, good-looking, gorgeous, graceful, handsome, lovely, pleasing, radiant, ravishing, stunning (informal) Antonyms. awful, bad, hideous, repulsive, terrible, ugly, unattractive, unpleasant, unsightly.

Is Gorgeous better than beautiful?

Beautiful is an adjective used to describe someone or something that is aesthetically pleasing. That person or item can please the mind, senses, and the eyes too. Gorgeous, on the other hand, refers to something or someone who is strikingly stunning, magnificent, good-looking, or wonderful from the outside.

What’s another word for ravishing?

Ravishing Synonyms – WordHippo Thesaurus….What is another word for ravishing?

beautiful	lovely
attractive	striking
bewitching	captivating
charming	enticing
gorgeous	knockout

What does it mean to ravage a woman?

To ravage is to pillage, sack, or devastate. The only time “ravaging” is properly used is in phrases like “when the pirates had finished ravaging the town, they turned to ravishing the women.” Which brings us to “ravish”: meaning to rape, or rob violently. … If a woman smashes your apartment up, she ravages it.

What is a ravenous person?

Ravenous, ravening, voracious suggest a greediness for food and usually intense hunger. Ravenous implies extreme hunger, or a famished condition: ravenous wild beasts. … Voracious implies craving or eating a great deal of food: a voracious child; a voracious appetite.

What is monotonous work?

Something that is monotonous is very boring because it has a regular, repeated pattern which never changes. It’s monotonous work, like most factory jobs. The food may get a bit monotonous, but there’ll be enough of it. Synonyms: tedious, boring, dull, repetitive More Synonyms of monotonous.

In many religious and philosophical systems, the word «soul» denotes the inner essence of a being comprising its locus of sapience (self-awareness) and metaphysical identity. Souls are usually described as immortal (surviving death in an afterlife) and incorporeal (without bodily form); however, some consider souls to have a material component, and have even tried to establish the mass (or weight) of the soul. Additionally, while souls are often described as immortal they are not necessarily eternal or indestructible, as is commonly assumed.^[1]

Throughout history, the belief in the existence of a soul has been a common feature in most of the world’s religions and cultures,^[2] although some major religions (notably Buddhism) reject the notion of an eternal soul.^[3] Those not belonging to an organized religion still often believe in the existence of souls although some cultures posit more than one soul in each person (see below). The metaphysical concept of a soul is often linked with ideas such as reincarnation, heaven, and hell.

The word «soul» can also refer to a type of modern music (see Soul Music).

Etymology

The modern English word soul derives from the Old English sáwol, sáwel, which itself comes from the Old High German sêula, sêla. The Germanic word is a translation of the Greek psychē (ψυχή- «life, spirit, consciousness») by missionaries such as Ulfila, apostle to the Goths (fourth century C.E.).

Definition

There is no universal agreement on the nature, origin, or purpose of the soul although there is much consensus that life, as we know it, does involve some deeper animating force inherent in all living beings (or at least in humans). In fact, the concept of an intrinsic life-force in all organisms has been a pervasive cross-cultural human belief.^[4] Many preliterate cultures embraced notions of animism and shamanism postulating early ideas of the soul. Over time, philosophical reflection on the nature of the soul/spirit, and their relationship to the material world became more refined and sophisticated. In particular, the ancient Greeks and Hindu philosophers, for example, eventually distinguished different aspects of the soul, or alternatively, asserted the non-dualism of the cosmic soul.

Greek philosophers used many words for soul such as thymos, ker/kardie, phren/phrenes, menos, noos, and psyche.^[5] Eventually, the Greeks differentiated between soul and spirit (psychē and pneuma respectively) and suggested that «aliveness» and the soul were conceptually linked.

However, it is not entirely clear that a single being had only one soul, as is often believed today. In fact, several ancient cultures such as the Egyptians and the Chinese posited that individual beings comprised of different souls (or had different elements in their soul). For instance, Egyptian mythology taught that an individual was made up of various elements, some physical and some spiritual, the Ren (name), the Bâ (personality), the Ka (vital spark), the Sheut (shadow), and the Jb (heart). Chinese tradition suggests that every individual has two types of soul called hun and po. Daoism considers there are ten elements to the soul: three hun and seven po.

It is also debated whether both animals and humans have souls, or only humans. In some systems of thought, souls are restricted to human beings while in other systems, souls encompass all life forms. These questions are often related to larger issues of creation and the relationship of the Creator to the created.

Consequently, the definition of a soul is not as straightforward as it may seem for it is confounded by issues of whether their is one soul or many, whether souls are pre-existent or created, and whether they are unified or separated, as well as their relationship to a divine being. For these reasons, it is impossible to come up with a universally recognized definition of a soul, although in popular spirituality souls are generally perceived to be the inner essence of a person that survives death and is essentially spiritual, although these views many not accord with scriptural teachings.

Philosophical Perspectives

Among Western philosophers, the ancient Greeks provided much insight into the nature of the soul. Two paradigmatic viewpoints were articulated by the philosophers Plato and Aristotle.
Plato, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, considered the soul as the essence of a person, which is an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. As our bodies die the soul is continually reborn in subsequent bodies. For Plato, the soul comprises three parts, each having a function in a balanced and peaceful life:

1. the logos (superego, mind, nous, or reason). The logos corresponds to the charioteer, directing the balanced horses of appetite and spirit. It allows for logic to prevail, and for the optimisation of balance

2. the thymos (emotion, ego, or spiritedness). The thymos comprises our emotional motive (ego), 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.

3. the pathos (appetitive, id, or carnal). The pathos equates to the appetite (id) 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.

Although Aristotle agreed with Plato that the soul is the core essence of a being, he argued against its having a separate existence. Unlike Plato, Aristotle did not consider the soul as some kind of separate, ghostly occupant of the body. According to him, the soul is an actuality of a living body, and thus it cannot be immortal.^[6] Aristotle describes this concept of the soul in many of his works such as the De Anima. He believed that there were four parts, or powers, of the soul: the calculative part, the scientific part on the rational side used for making decisions and the desiderative part and the vegetative part on the irrational side responsible for identifying our needs.

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.^[7]

Religious views

An alphabetical survey of some religious views on the soul is provided below:

Bahá’í beliefs

The principle figure of the Bahá’í Faith, known as Bahá’u’lláh, taught that individuals have no existence previous to their life here on earth. 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. He said that similarly, this physical world is like a womb for entry into the spiritual world.^[8] 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.^[8] The soul’s evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.

Chinese beliefs

The ancient Chinese believed that every person’s soul consisted of at least two distinct parts: p’o and hun. The p‘o is the visible personality indissolubly attached to the body, while the hun was its more ethereal complement also interpenetrating the body, but not of necessity 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. Furthermore, the body is duplicated under these conditions, but also the garments that clothe it. Should the hun stay away permanently, death results.

Most Daoist schools believe that every individual has more than one soul (or the soul can be separated into different parts) and these souls are constantly transforming themselves. Some believe there are at least three souls for every person: one soul coming from one’s father, one from one’s mother, and one primordial soul. An important part of spiritual practice for some Taoist schools is to harmonize/integrate those three souls.

Some other schools believe there are ten souls for each person: three from heaven, seven from earth.

Christian beliefs

Some 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 groups dispute whether this reward/punishment depends upon doing good deeds, or merely upon believing in God and in Jesus.) Other Christians reject the idea of the immortality of the soul, citing the Apostles Creed’s reference to the «resurrection of the body» (the Greek word for body is soma, which implies the whole person, not sarx, the term for flesh or corpse). They consider the soul to be the life force, which ends in death and is restored in the resurrection. In this theory, the soul goes to «sleep» at the time of death, and stays in this quiescent state until the last judgment. However, other Christians that believe the soul will be destroyed in hell, instead of suffering eternally.^[9]

One of the main issues is whether the body and soul are separate or there is unity, and whether they remain so after death. In popular thinking, it is often presumed that the soul survives death separate from the body but scriptural analysis suggests that the resurrected person involves both body and soul together and unified. Seventh-Day Adventists believe that the main definition of the term «Soul» is a combination of Spirit (breath of life) and body, defying the view that the soul has a consciousness or sentient existence of its own. They affirm this through Genesis 2:7 «And (God) breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.» Yet, other passages from the Bible seem to contradict this view. For example, «Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.» The soul and body are noted as separate. Psalm 63:1 «O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.» Here the body and soul are noted as separate again. Micah 6:7 «Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?» Once again, the soul and body are noted separate.

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. Saint Thomas Aquinas understood the soul as the first principle, or act, of the body. However, his epistemological theory required that, since the intellectual soul is capable of knowing all material things, and since in order to know a material thing there must be no material thing within it, the soul was definitely not corporeal. Therefore, the soul had an operation separate from the body and therefore could subsist without the body. Furthermore, since the rational soul of human beings was subsistent and was not made up of matter and form, it could not be destroyed in any natural process. The full argument for the immortality of the soul and Thomas’s elaboration of Aristotelian theory is found in Question 75 of the Summa Theologica.

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.» The soul is the center of the human will, intellect (or mind), and imagination (or memory), and the source of all free human acts, although good acts are aided by God’s grace. At the moment of death, the soul goes either to Purgatory, Heaven, or Hell. Purgatory is a place of atonement for sins that one goes through to pay the temporal punishment for post-baptismal sins that have not been atoned for by sufferings during one’s earthly life. This is distinct from the atonement for the eternal punishment due to sin which was affected by Christ’s suffering and death. Eastern Orthodox views are very similar to Catholic views while Protestants generally believe both in the soul’s existence but do not generally believe in Purgatory.

Hindu beliefs

In Hinduism, several Sanskrit words are used to denote the «soul» within living beings. These words include «Jiva» (individual soul), «Atman» (intrinsic divine essence), and «Purusha» (spirit), among others. Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the soul. For example, Advaita (non-dualism) accords the soul union with Brahman (the Absolute) in eventuality or in pre-existing fact. Dvaita (dualism) rejects this position, instead identifying the soul as a different and incompatible substance.

The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most significant Hindu 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), and (iii) Ananda (bliss).

Islamic beliefs

The Qur’an does not explain much about the concept of the soul. However, the following information can be inferred. According to the Holy Qur’an (Sura 15 verse 29), the creation of man involves Allah or an Angel of Allah «breathing» a soul into man. 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).

Thus, it is generally believed that all living beings are comprised of two aspects during their existence: the physical (being the body) and the non-physical (being the soul). The non-physical aspect, namely the soul, includes his/her feelings and emotions, thoughts, conscious and sub-conscious desires and objectives. While the body and its physical actions are said to serve as a “reflection” of one’s soul, whether it is good or evil, thus confirming the extent of such intentions.

Jain beliefs

According to Jainism, Soul (jiva) exists as a reality, having a separate existence from the body that houses it. Every being – be it a human or a plant or a bacterium – has a soul and has a capacity to experience pain and pleasure. The soul (Jiva) is differentiated from non-soul or non-living reality (ajiva) that includes matter, time, space, principle of motion and principle of rest.

As realization of the soul and its salvation are the highest objective to be attained, most of the Jaina texts deal with various aspects of the soul (i.e., its qualities, attributes, bondage, interaction with other elements, salvation etc.).
The soul is described as being without taste, color and cannot be perceived by the five senses. Consciousness is its chief attribute. To know the soul is to be free of any gender and not bound by any dimensions of shape and size. Hence the soul, according to Jainism, is indestructible and permanent from the point of view of substance. It is temporary and ever changing from the point of view of its modes. The soul continuously undergoes modifications as per the karma it attracts and hence reincarnates in the following four states of existence — 1) as a Demi-God in Heaven, or 2) as a tormented soul in Hell, or 3) as a Human being on Continents, or 4) as an Animal, or a Plant, or as a Micro-organism. The soul will remain in bondage until it attains liberation. The liberated soul, which is formless and incorporeal in nature, is said to experience infinite knowledge, omniscience, infinite power and infinite bliss after liberation. Even after liberation and attainment of Godhood, the soul does not merge into any entity (as in other philosophies), but maintains its individuality.

Jewish beliefs

According to the Hebrew Bible, the origin of the soul is described in the Book of Genesis, which 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» (Genesis 2:7 New JPS). In other books of the Tanakh, Rachel’s death in Genesis 35:18 equates with her soul (Hebrew nephesh) departing. Later, 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.» Thus, death in the Torah meant that something called nephesh (or «soul») became separated from the body, and life could return when this soul returned. Classical rabbinic literature provided various commentaries on the Torah, which elucidated the nature of the soul. For example, Saadia Gaon, in his Emunoth ve-Deoth 6:3, held that the soul comprises that part of a person’s mind that constitutes physical desire, emotion, and thought. Maimonides, in his The Guide to the Perplexed, viewed the soul through the lens of neo-Aristotelian philosophy, as a person’s developed intellect.

Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) saw the soul as having three elements: the nephesh, ru’ah, and neshamah. A common way of explaining these three parts follows:

• Nephesh — The part that is alive and signifies that which is vital in man: it feels hunger, hates, loves, loathes, weeps, and most importantly, can die (can depart from the body, but can sometimes come back in again). The nephesh is in all humans and enters the body at birth when the body first takes a breath. Animals also have a nephesh (they breathe), but plants do not. It is the source of one’s physical and psychological nature.^[10]

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, the 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.

Sikh beliefs

Sikhism considers the atma (soul) to be part of Universal Soul, which is God (Parmatma). The Sikh holy book known as the «Guru Granth Sahib» contains various hymns that affirm the loving relationship between atma and God:

«God is in the Soul and the Soul is in the God.»^[11]

«The soul is divine; divine is the soul. Worship Him with love.»^[12]

«The soul is the Lord, and the Lord is the soul; contemplating the Shabad, the Lord is found.»^[13]

Sundry beliefs

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) believe that the soul is the union of a spirit, which was previously created by God, and a body, which is formed by physical conception later.
• 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.

Contrary Ideas

Buddhist beliefs

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. They add that understanding of anatta (or «not-self or no soul») 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.

However, some scholars 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.

Atheism and scientific skepticism

Atheists do not usually accept the existence of a soul. Modern skeptics often cite phenomena such as brain lesions^[14] and Alzheimer’s disease as supposed evidence that one’s personality is material and contrary to the philosophy of an immortal, unified soul.

Science and medicine seek naturalistic accounts of the observable natural world. This stance is known as methodological naturalism.^[15] From this perspective, for the soul to exist it would have to manifest as a form of energy mediated by a force. However, only four forces have been experimentally confirmed to exist (strong interaction, weak interaction, electromagnetism and gravitation). The only force which operates relevantly at the human scale is electromagnetism. This force is understood and described by Quantum Electrodynamics and Special Relativity. Any additional force acting upon humans or emanating from the mind would be detected in laboratories as an aberration of the predictable behavior of electromagnetism. Much of scientific study relating to the soul has been involved in investigating 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.»^[16] 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.

Nevertheless, in recent decades, much research has been done in near-death experiences, which are held by many as evidence for the existence of a soul and afterlife. Researchers, most notably Ian Stevenson and Brian Weiss have studied reports of children talking about past-life experiences.^[17] 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.

Text in the article

During the late nineteenth and first half twentieth 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:

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 curiosity, but nothing more.^[18]

Origin of the Soul

The origin of the soul has provided a sometimes vexing question in Christianity; the major theories put forward include creationism, traducianism and pre-existence. According to creationism, each individual soul is created directly by God, either at the moment of conception, or some later time (identical twins arise several cell divisions after conception, but no one would deny that they have whole souls). According to traducianism, the soul comes from the parents by natural generation. According to the pre-existence theory the soul exists before the moment of conception.

According to the Roman Catholic Church, every human being receives a soul at the moment of conception, and has rights and dignity equal to persons of further development, including the right to life. Thus, the Catholic Church teaches the creationist view of the origin of the soul: «The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God» (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 382).

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Batchelor, Stephen. Buddhism Without Belief. Riverhead Trade, 1998. ISBN 978-1573226561
• Bremmer, Jan. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton University Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0691101903
• Claus, David B. Toward the Soul: An Inquiry into the Meaning of ψυχή before Plato. London: Yale University Press, 1981.
• Cornford, Francis, M. Greek Religious Thought. Ams Pr Inc, 1979. ISBN 978-0404017347
• Crick, Francis. Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. Scribner, 1995. ISBN 978-0684801582
• McGraw, John J. Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul. Aegis Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0974764504
• Milbourne, Christopher. Search for the Soul. Thomas Y. Crowell Publishers, 1979. ISBN 978-0690017601
• Rohde, Erwin. Psyche: the Cult Of Souls And Belief In Immortality Among The Greeks. Routledge, 2000. ISBN 978-0415225632
• Stevenson, Ian. Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects. Praeger Publishers, 1997. ISBN 978-0275952839
• Stevenson, Ian. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. University Press of Virginia, 1980. ISBN 978-0813908724
• Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford University Press, 1997 ISBN 978-0198236986
• von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1965.
• Wilson, Edward O. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Vintage, 1999. ISBN 067976867X

External links

All links retrieved February 3, 2023.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Ancient Theories of the Soul

This is the second and last part of the series on the origin of the word soul. See part one in the post for 15 March 2022. The perennial interest in the etymology of this word should not surprise us. It is our inability to find a convincing solution that causes astonishment and disappointment. Those who can read German will find a good survey in the paper by Dr. Peter-Arnold Mumm in the 2018 Elke Ronneberger Festschrift. I’ll touch on the questions and comments in my next “gleanings.”

It is sometimes said that before Christianization, the ancestors of the Germanic-speaking people referred to souls only when they spoke about dead or unborn people. Allegedly, souls resided in some distant area, and hypotheses revolved round the place of that otherworldly realm. At first sight, such a hypothesis sounds reasonable. As mentioned a week ago, Bishop Wulfila knew how to translate Greek psychē into Gothic. Later, English- and German-speaking clerics had no trouble with the word for “soul” either. In this situation, a historical linguist has several options. Perhaps saiwol– is a native Germanic word and did refer to an entity existing before our birth and surviving the body after its death. This is thought-provoking guesswork, but references to such a state of affairs did not occur in any extant text.

In Old Scandinavian mythology and legends, life after death (only after death, not before one’s birth) is described in great detail. No immaterial substance is ever mentioned. On the contrary, the dead lead a busy life: fight, feast, compose poetry, sing songs, and occasionally return as malicious ghosts (so-called revenants). Last week, I mentioned a creature called fylgja. This is a human being’s protective spirit and may assume the form of a giantess or an animal, or some other creature. Meeting one’s fylgja (occasionally covered with blood) in real life or in a dream is a sign of imminent death: the protective spirit has deserted the body or perished. Allusions to what we call heredity also occurred, but nothing resembling the immortal soul is ever mentioned. The language of the Goths and other Germanic-speaking tribes has been most successfully searched for remnants of paganism. No hint of soul has turned up.

Among other things, reference to old mythology and literature is important, because the first three letters of saiwol– coincide with the root of the Germanic word for “sea.” Hence the idea that the two words are connected: after one’s death, human souls allegedly depart “overseas.” Sea burials are known very well (one is described in Beowulf, another in the myth of Baldr), but ships took bodies, not “souls” to the Other World. The seemingly obvious connection between soul and the word for “sea” was suggested by the great and almost infallible Jacob Grimm. Though his etymology looks convincing, unfortunately, the etymology of sea also remains a matter of dispute—a familiar quandary.

Two things should be said before we go on with this story. First: religious terms often fall victim to taboo or cannot be pronounced for some other reason. Perhaps saiwol– is a garbled version of some other word. This hypothesis, though supported by multiple evidence, naturally, does not explain anything. The other way out is reference to the substrate, that is, to some native and lost language of the Pre-Indo-European population from which the word for “soul” was borrowed. Here we face another blind alley, like the reference to taboo. The hypothetical source language is unknown and can never be known. Reference to it means: “Etymology is beyond recovery.” In Scandinavia, the speakers of Germanic interacted with Saami speakers and adopted some of their words and religious customs. Shamanism is not a Germanic phenomenon. Yet it exercised some influence on the ancestors on the Norwegians and Swedes. No Saami word for “soul” reached Old Norse. Nor is there a similar Celtic word for “soul” in Anglo-Saxon. To be sure, there is a third variant. The word may be “Nostratic,” that is, almost panhuman. My colleague, a specialist in Turkic and Altaic, alerted me to a word for “breath” in those languages which sounds very much like soul. Yet in Greek, Latin, Celtic, and Balto-Slavic, no match for it has been found.

Some candidates, like Latin saeculum “age; generation, etc.” and Greek dzaō “to live” (the latter allegedly “by inserting l”!), were dropped almost at once, but aiólos “movable, agile, etc.,” a presumable cognate of soul, still has some supporters. Soul emerged from that reconstruction as a quick-moving animal (a mouse or a butterfly) leaving the body after its death. Some folklore supports this idea. (The absence of initial s in aiólos need not bother us. Time and again, we come across that equally agile word-initial consonant called s-mobile.) Yet the origin of the Greek adjective is far from clear, and we are once again reminded of the rule: “Never use an obscure word to explain another obscure one.”

There have been many attempts to present Germanic saiwalō as the compound sai– + wal. The first component resembles the Slavic and Baltic word for “force, strength,” and the second reminds us of the Germanic word for “a dead person” (as in Valkyrie and Valhalla). Part of this etymology is old, but Elmar Seebold (in his editions of Kluge’s etymological dictionary) discusses it at length (note that he misspelled the name of Levitsky or Lewitskij), and therefore, it has become known to many readers.

None of the hypotheses cited above is wrong by definition (naturally: they were offered by outstanding researchers!), but all of them illustrate the game I called last week etymological legerdemain, for which the respectable term is root etymology. Also last week, I mentioned Peter-Arnold Mumm’s paper on the origin of the word soul. He did not only examine all the earlier hypotheses but also proposed his own. He suggested that Germanic saiwalō is a compound, whose first component is related to Latin saevus “fierce, raging” and the second is wala– “dead person” (see it above). His reconstruction depends on the idea that the word for “soul” goes back to the belief in revenants (the dead returning to the human community). I have moderate enthusiasm for this hypothesis: the word “soul” must have meant something less frightening and perhaps less tangible. Also, as far I can remember, the best-known revenants were characters in Icelandic sagas, and all those living dead (or the undead, as they were called) appeared among the living if they were not buried properly.

When the shining god Baldr was put on the funeral pyre, his father Othin (or Odin) whispered something to him. Many generations of scholars have tried to guess what he whispered. Of course, we will never know the answer. But from the ethnographers’ work we know what the survivors say to the departed. There are three main variants: “repose in peace,” “protect us while residing in the kingdom of the dead,” and “do not return.” From those rituals I don’t see much support in discovering the etymology of soul.

Since the oldest recorded word for “soul’ occurs in Gothic, it is discussed in the great etymological dictionary of Gothic by Sigmund Feist (1939). Feist argued for the Greek aiōlos as the word’s root and cited some ethnographic data in support of his reconstruction. Winfred P. Lehmann, in his 1985 reworking of Feist, returned to Jacob Grimm’s sea hypothesis, which Mumm dismisses as indefensible. Apparently, we know too little about the beliefs of Wulfila’s ancestors to reach a persuasive solution and have no clue to the origin of the word soul. I am really sorry,  and my soul is dark.

_{Feature image by Giga Khurtsilava on Unsplash}

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