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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 ...
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul (kꜣ and bꜣ; Egypt. pron. ka/ba) was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body (called the ḥꜥ, occasionally a plural ḥꜥw, meaning approximately "sum of bodily parts").
In the 16th and 17th centuries, expressions referring to the ground of the soul were prevalent in spiritual literature. On occasion, such terminology was employed with explicit reference to Tauler, as evidenced by the works of the Benedictine Louis de Blois (1506–1566) and the Jesuit Maximilian van der Sandt (Sandaeus, 1578–1656). [125]
The sensitive soul, however, allows for sensation and movement in humans and animals. The third, the rational, is exclusive to humans, and allows for rational thought. [6] In book II, Aristotle states that, the soul is the part of the human that allows its entire being, that one can't exist without the other and they complement each other.
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 ...
The position that metaphysical disputes have no meaning or no significant point is called metaphysical or ontological deflationism. [124] This view is opposed by so-called serious metaphysicians, who contend that metaphysical disputes are about substantial features of the underlying structure of reality. [125]
The Aristotelian soul's conception is described in the treaty On the Soul from a theoretical point of view, and in the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics from a practical one. [ 3 ] Christian thought developed the concept of creatio ex nihilo according to which all what exists is a contingent creature of God, including matter.
Descartes' metaphysical thought is found in his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644). Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) – one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. He defined "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, and both matter and thought as attributes of such.