Defining the general category of illness implies certain assumptions in three research plains: philosophical anthropology, epistemology, and axiology. These plains constitute three theoretical dimensions of comprehending illness. The article makes an attempt to determine anthropological bases of the category of illness. It aims at answering the question if explaining of the category of illness, based exclusively on biological norms, is justified in philosophy and medicine. In attempts to answer the question posed in the title of the paper, there are useful both, contemporary disputes about the nature of mental illness, and the personalistic theory of human being.
In this article the author would like to draw the reader's attention to one of the most interesting conceptions of man, that of Plato. Plato is one of the main sources of the dualist view on the human nature, according to which man consists of the two elements, soul and body; the human soul is non-material and can exist apart from the material body. This statement is controversial because it is not clear how these two distinct entities can exist in one human being. For centuries prominent philosophers considered this to be an issue of prime importance; even now this problem continues to raise deep questions. However, it is worth noting that Plato himself did not formulate one solution to the problem; instead, he tried to describe it in many ways using various metaphors. The author believes that it is more fruitful to see Plato's strategy in this way instead of reducing the relation between the body and the soul to one of its common characteristics, for example, comparing the body to a prison of the soul. It is well known that the core of Plato's conception is knowledge about the soul. The Greek philosopher presents his threefold theory as the central point of reference for his anthropological concept. This is true, but the theory must be put into the proper context. On the one hand, it is bound up with the general conception of the universe, with the macrocosm, to use the Greek term; on the other, it is a basis for both ethical and political considerations. This is also important for the understanding of man. The result is that man is part of the chain of beings, of the rational cosmos. But as a microcosm he/she must imitate an external order in individual, as well as in political life.
This paper deals with Democritus’ thoughts concerned with the life and death of human soul. Democritus was known for his materialist atomist doctrine, which had many implications for his investigations in the area of mind and soul. According to him, the soul is corporeal, i.e. it is a compound, consisting of atoms of specific (fiery) nature. Therefore, it is prone to destruction just like anything else existing in the universe. Soul must perish after the death of the body, because the material bounds holding the soul together are destroyed. Like Socrates, Democritus held the view that from a moral point of view the experience of death should not disturb us, because our death is insignificant for leading a good and happy life. Unlike Socrates, Democritus supported this view by the notion of soul as perishable entity, which is necessarily destroyed by dissolution after the death of body. By acknowledging this fact we might see quite plainly that it is us who control our life goals; this insight cannot be made clearer by any metaphysical or psychological theory.
One of the most original and creative French philosophers, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who died 50 years ago, still remains to be discovered by contemporary readers. In his philosophical endeavour he developed a thought-provoking conception. Merleau-Ponty was one of the leading figures of the phenomenological movement. In the paper the author would like to draw the readers’ attention to some of his illuminating ideas. The paper mainly focuses on the first period of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical development in which this outstanding French philosopher elaborated on a still valid idea concerning human action and the mind-body relation.
The paper investigates the structure of Patočka’s interpretation of „the care of the soul“. From Patočka’s analyses as well as from the commentary works it is obvious, that Patočka’s eminent interest was to render the soul as open, unconceivable, problematic and as such forcing a person to live in a positive uncertainty, i.e. in a moral condition which makes her responsible for her own deeds. In ancient tradition this stand seems to have been adopted by Socrates whom Patočka on this very ground prefers to Plato, who on the contrary made the care of the soul as a part of his metaphysical theory of ideas. Some Patočka’s accounts suggest, however, that this Socratic conception did not comfort the later Patočka either. Thus the conception which he personally appreciated at most goes back to Aristotle who was the first who introduce the concept of action. As far as the author knows, this point is not taken into account sufficiently in secondary sources, although it substantially changes the pattern of Patočka’s care of the soul and makes new interpretations of his conception possible.
The article raises problems of the body and soul concept in different periods of poetry evolution. Its dramatic modifications are traced in the ancient, Christian, renaissance, post-renaissance (classical), non-classical and post-modern eras.
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Anastasius Bibliothecarius lists a number of texts by Constantine the Philosopher from Thessaloniki from which we learn about philosophical topics. We focus on the question whether a person has one or two souls. We look closely on this issue and interpret the text of Anastasius, which is ideologically and politically conditioned. The meaning of the word “slovo” in church-Slavonic Vita Constantini has been translated as a “speech”, ability to speak. Byzantine literature shows another interpretation of this church-Slavonic term.
The text deals with the attitudes towards the body and the soul in the Ruthenian Orthodox homiliary literature in the 17th century. In some sermons one can read that people are more perfect God’s creatures than angels which have no opportunity to come back to God after their fall at the beginning of the time. Preachers emphasized many advantages of having material body, the main being: — the body is not as precious as the soul but just because of the body, human being is able to do penance, do merciful deeds towards the poor, orphans, widows, sick people; can sacrifice sufferings for the sins; — weakness and mortality of the body help people to remember that they should make efforts to achieve future joy; — human nature is not tended to evil nor is the body, and the bodily death we cannot avoid is the only way to leave worldliness and reach better life in eternity. It is a very optimistic way of thinking about the body and the soul and it seems to have its source in the Church fathers’ teachings.
The article analyses a meeting of protagonists in the childhood in Fear novel. This meeting has determined their further life. The author has concentrated on the boy and the girl’s maturing as well as on relations between flesh and soul. Disharmony between K***’s flesh and soul becomes the reason of his fears and neurasthenia. As a result, such a condition of his mind leads to his suicide. The author of the novel compares the life of the protagonist to such writers as E.A. Poe, S. Kierkegaard, and N. Gogol. (There are a lot of quotations, allusions, reminiscences from Gogol’s Vij and Terrible revenge in the novel.) They are typologically very similar: all of them are alone, reserved, not understood by the environment, prone to depression, and aware of their own psychological non-standard. Writers to whom the author appeals, could direct overflowing energy to a creative channel at a certain stage of their life. Unlike them, energy of Postnov’s protagonists has been directed exclusively to self-damage.
Thomas Aquinas advocates a noticeably anti-dualistic anthropological position, which forces him to explain human beings as metaphysically complex beings. This would be impossible on the physical level alone. However, the problem of the essence of material forms is still elaborated insufficiently. As to my knowledge, there are still two questions, which have not been properly answered: (a) How should be the matter in the essence of particular beings comprehended; b) how it is possible to combine the existence of an indivisible soul with its being the very basis of intellect and the form of the body. The paper unveils Aquinas’s differentiated approach to these questions in order to suggest a new interpretation of the essence of material beings. Rendered in a wider context of Thomas’s psychology, it would comply with following requirements: a) historical-philosophical coherence, by which we mean primarily a meaningful categorization of the elaborated concept into the historical philosophical framework; b) metaphysical coherence and c) philosophical-psychological coherence.
The objective of the article is to characterize the complex standing of psychological heritage of Thomas Aquinas’s concept of soul in view of previous tradition. Further, the article attempts to demonstrate that Thomas´ psychology is significantly wiser than traditional interpretations resting on the concept of soul as substantial form would indicate. A novel approach to the concept of soul in Thomas Aquinas´ works is suggested, based on the possibility of relating to the soul in terms of various philosophical levels or disciplines, namely the metaphysical, physical and moral-theological levels. The argumentation presented rests on a basic assumption that metaphysical concepts allow for analyzing all that falls in the scope of other disciplines – physics, and to some extent, even theology. The latter assumption constitutes a key for the analysis of the levels of Thomas Aquinas´ philosophical psychology.
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In Origen's Commentaries on the Song of Songs, Holiness of the Church seems to be above all (if not exclusively) holiness of the 'ecclesiastical souls' purged by their proximity to Christ. Although Origen presents the Church as 'black and comely' bride he does not mean that she would be both holy and sinful, as it is the case in the works of some other Christian interpreters.
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The article is an attempt to demonstrate the role of mind (νούς) when a human being commits a sin, according to the teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor, while the function of mind was analysed by Aristotle, centuries ago. The author, at first, clarifies the relation of sin to the God’s creation, based on St Maximus’s theology. After that, he presents the Maximian division of the sinners, into unwilling (αδιαθέτως) and willing (ενδιαθέτως) sinners, and he tries to explain how the mind works in the passionate world of the second ones, by using the senses, the imagination and the memory. Finally, he deals with the Aristotle’s notion of mind, such as its definition, its functional division and the usage of sensation, imagination and memory while it acts (νοείν).
The Thomistic proof of the immateriality of human reason consists in the argument from the fact that intellection has as its object not empirical particulars but abstract universals. A standard objection against dualism plays up the problem with the causal influence of the soul on the body (psychophysical problem). The Thomistic solution depends on the hylemorphic conception of the soul as a substantial form of body, i.e. on the view that the human soul is (also) that in virtue of which a human body has those essential properties which it has.
The paper deals with the way how Plato uses the phrase doing one’s own in searching for the definition of sôphrosunê in the Charmides. Although the main theme of this dialogue is sôphrosunê, the consequence of the Critias’ concept of sôphrosunê, namely that sôphrosunê does not bring the community any advantage, also concerns the benefit of the community. The paper deals with the aporia of possibility and usefulness of self-knowledge in the dialogue. The text intends to show that the source of these aporia is Critias’ strict separation of three kinds of knowledge (“the knowledge of knowledge”, the “knowledge of good and evil” and “technical knowledge”). This separation is based on Critias’ potentially tyrannical “self-consciousness“ freed from all content determinations and governing the knowledge of good and evil. The unity between them has to the form of a complex structure the bearer of which is the soul and which is dominated by the knowledge of good and evil.
In the contribution two Plotinus´ treatises are scrutinized in order to unveil the possible self-givens of soul on one side and intellect on the other. Plotinus´ concept of soul borders on the definition of a human being (whose constitution depends on the soul descending into him), while the intellect is divine, non-human. In Plotinus self-givens means self-knowledge, self-reflection or self-awareness. The question is, whether self-knowledge as the highest knowledge is related to the soul, or to the intellect alone. Even though the author outlines what could be regarded as the self-knowledge of soul, he questions the independent existence of this self of soul. Soul is not self-given in knowledge, it is rather self-given by intellect. This, strangely enough, corresponds with M. Henry’s conception of the relationship between the Self (i.e. soul in Plotinus) and Life (i.e. Intellect in Plotinus).
The paper considers some of the issues of the existence and development of the Krestovozdvizhensk labour brotherhood of N. Nepluiev. The issues of faith, the existence of a single "soul", sin overcome, an act of faith, love and work in the Brotherhood are considered.
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The article deals with the concept of a human being with respect to its composition from soul and body. The discussion of this topic was very important and fruitful in the 13th century. It was stimulated by Aristotle's writings appearing at that time in Christian Europe. The article focuses on the most important 13th century authors who contributed to that discussion: Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Latin averroists. During this discussion of soul and body, there was a shift from a platonic philosophical framework to an Aristotelian one. It also resulted in the Church doctrine of human soul.
In the article I compare the psycho-physical dualism of Nicolas Malebranche and Henri Bergson. The study of these two systems is important because Bergson is often critical of modern theories claiming a parallelism of soul and body. Malebranche bases his system on the category of space, while Bergson rejects the spatial view of reality and bases his conception on the notion of duration. On the one hand, Bergson criticizes the Cartesian dualistic conception. Yet, on the other hand, he builds his system in reference to modern solutions. The comparison of these two significantly different conceptions gives a more profound understanding of the problem of psycho-physical dualism. Furthermore, it makes possible a better appreciation of the innovative character of Bergson’s proposal. I consider the relation between mind and brain by means of an analysis of sensation because in both theories it is here that soul and body meet.
The study compares two approaches to human being: Plato’s concept of three (parts of) souls and Patočka’s concept of three movements of existence. The aim of this contrastive study is to evaluate Patočka’s effort to make the concept of human being a-subjective and non-substantive. Special attention is dedicated to two key problems: the concept of body and the relationship between a part (an individual) and the whole (the world). The comparison of the thinkers indicates Patočka’s underestimation of the objective organization of body including its incorporation in the world. The presentation of the relationship between an individual and the whole provides an opportunity to discuss realistic moments of Plato’s approach and speculative moments of Patočka’s phenomenology of existence. Finally, these findings make it possible to articulate the main difficulties of an ontological interpretation of the phenomenology of movement.
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