Soul

SOUL, MENTALLY ILL. Soul (anima, psyche), a concept into which the most varied content is invested. In idealistic philosophy, the soul is the highest principle of life, will, feeling, and thought, the immaterial substrate of the human "I." In empirical psychology, the soul is the totality of human experience from the point of view of its dependence on the experiencing subject, the totality of psychic experiences, or their lawful connection. The cited definitions do not exhaust the entire diversity of meanings invested in the concept of the soul, since one can find one's own interpretation of this term in the majority of major idealist psychologists. The genesis of the concept of the soul goes back to deep antiquity. Even in the pre-animistic period, in the so-called "animatic" views (Marrett) of the Paleolithic, in the belief in witchcraft powers and in the cult of the dead, one can find the first germs of ideas about the soul. These ideas, although they bear an indefinite and undifferentiated character, are material and "natural," since the weak thinking of the savage was "below the idea of the supernatural." The further development of ideas about the soul is conditioned by the beginning of the socio-economic stratification of the horde. Parallel to the fragmentation of the collective, ideas about partial ("partial") souls and about an individual soul-double arise. However, among primitive peoples, these views are not yet connected with dualism. Their soul is entirely material: it is a duplicate of the person, his second "I," capable of leading an independent existence and endowed with all his organs. Formally, these ideas were based on biological phenomena, mainly sleep, death, and fainting states, but these ideas could arise exclusively thanks to the influences of social life. Thus, for example, dream visions were equated by the uncritical thinking of the savage with acts of real reality. Only the testimony of kinsmen revealed the fact that the body of the sleeper rested while the soul-double hunted, fought, in a word, lived a different life. Early naive-materialistic ideas under the influence of a new economic structure (the emerging and ever-expanding division of labor) yield their place to dualistic views. It is only from the moment of the "division of material and spiritual labor... consciousness begins to really imagine something, not imagining something real..." (Marx-Engels). The labor of the organizer then finds its reflection in a new view of the soul as an active, organizing, and governing principle, while the body is ascribed the role of a blind executor of orders. "Man fell apart into soul and body" (Bukharin). The "double" gradually acquires the role of "master" (the name for the soul among the Eskimos). At the same time, the very concept of the soul becomes more complex formally: beliefs in two, three, and more souls are created. Thus, the Egyptians endowed a person with two souls, the Chinese and ancient Romans with three (among the Romans: manes, anima, umbra), the Dakota Indians with four. After death, the soul met a fate closely tied to the social position of its owner during life. The dwelling place of the soul was assumed to be in the blood (Papuans, Jews), the heart (Caribs), the abdominal cavity (Polynesians), etc. The soul can leave its dwelling temporarily (sleep, fainting) or permanently (death), in the form of a cloud, smoke, breath through the mouth and other natural openings, or together with blood through wounds. Having left the body of its possessor after his death, the soul can migrate into some other organism or even into an inanimate object (the so-called metempsychosis—a doctrine encountered later in a number of religions, e.g., in Brahmanism and Buddhism, and among many philosophers—Pythagoras, Plotinus, etc.). The nascent Greek philosophy formally reworks animistic ideas about the soul and includes them in systems created by various authors, but the content of this concept remains for a long time naive-materialistic. The soul is represented as air (Anaximander, Anaximenes) or fire (Heraclitus). Democritus asserts that the matter of the soul is fire, the atoms of which—the smallest, round, and smooth—are distributed throughout the body. Their movement explains psychic activity. Diogenes of Apollonia returns again to the idea of the soul as air (to which he gives the predicate of mind). Psychic states, in his opinion, depend on the mixing of blood with air. Hippocrates adheres to a similar view, namely, he assumes that a substance similar to air moving in the veins, "pneuma," is the carrier of "innate heat," the cause of life. Plato is the first to break with the view of the soul as a material activity differing only in a finer structure. Plato's soul already belongs to the supersensible world, but is not equal to "ideas," but only similar to them. It is one, but consists of three parts, of which one—"mind"—is immortal, and the other two, having functions of affectivity and desire—are mortal (Timaeus). These parts of the soul, in Plato's opinion, are located respectively in the brain, heart, and stomach. In the first system of psychology (in Aristotle), the soul takes on an actualistic character. It is the "goal-striving actuality of the living body," the "entelechy of the body," an organizing activity that changes and forms it. "If the eye existed separately, its soul would be sight" (Aristotle). There are three ranks of the soul—vegetative (anima vegetativa), characteristic of plants, and in humans, it manages vegetative functions; in animals, the sensitive (anima sensitiva) is added to it, and in humans, besides that, also reason (anima rationalis). Anima rationalis is no longer fully covered by the sum of organic functions, does not perish after death, and separates from the body. Thus, according to Aristotle, consciousness is not an essential sign of the soul in general: its role is to actualize matter, to set it in motion. The dwelling place of the soul is in an ether-like substance (pneuma), located in animals in the blood. Blood boils in the main organ of the soul—the heart—and is cooled by the brain. The actual understanding of the soul, first encountered in Aristotle, although not fully sustained, subsequently gives way again to substantial views, most fully expressed by Aurelius Augustine, according to whom the soul is a simple, indivisible, and incorporeal substance, known to us in internal experience. In new philosophy, Descartes developed very similar views. He considered the soul a "created substance," entirely opposite to matter: matter is extended and unthinking, the soul is thinking and unextended. Its essence is only in thinking. From this, it is understandable that Descartes endowed only man with a soul. Animals are automata, the expediency of whose behavior depends on the perfection of the nervous system. In man, his involuntary movements are coordinated in a similar way. The "seat of the soul" can only be a non-paired formation of the brain, the glandula pinealis—the "place of convergence of all nerves." At this point, "vital spirits" (the language of physiology of that time), a subtle matter flowing through the nerves, acts on the soul and, conversely, the soul on the "vital spirits," thereby generating sensations, feelings, etc. This hypothesis of Descartes laid the foundation for the so-called "theory of direct influence." Spinoza sought to overcome the dualism of Descartes with his monistic doctrine. Matter and Spirit (or soul and body) are attributes of one substance. Thanks to this basic position, the question of the primacy of matter or soul, as well as the self-sufficient substantiality of the latter, is removed. Almost a century later, Hume speaks out against the substantial understanding of the soul. Hume, equally rejecting the concept of both material and spiritual substance, asserted that the human "I" consists only of the totality of all experiences. The soul is only a bundle, a "bundle of perceptions." At the present time, Mach (and Avenarius) develops similar views. Proceeding from an analysis of the content of our experience, Mach asserts that both the body, as an object of our experience, and our "I" are complexes of colors, tones, images of memory, etc., "elements" (sensations). The subject is built from sensations; "our 'I' cannot be saved" (Mach)—it is only a more closely connected group of "elements." On the other hand, a number of materialistic views were opposed to idealistic views. Man, according to La Mettrie, is... a completely material being, and thought is a property of matter. Holbach (1770) developed analogous views in "Systeme de la Nature," introducing a significant addition: not every matter thinks, but only organized matter. From this follows his remarkable formulation: "thought is a property of organized matter." Alongside this, among the materialists of the 18th century, there were propositions that reduced thought and consciousness to the movement of material particles of the brain. Hume's point of view received further development in the works of the associationist school (J. S. Mill, Bain, Spencer, and others). This atomistic representation of the soul caused a revival of the so-called actual theory of the soul; according to this theory, "the soul is nothing other than the psychic experiences themselves," a constant change of acts or processes. At the same time, a certain activity of the soul is asserted ("active, or volitional apperception," in Wundt)."

Any invention of some kind of 'carrier', substrate, or substance represents an illegitimate transfer of our judgments about the external world to the internal world; '...the substance of the Soul has disappeared as a metaphysical ornament' (Wundt). However, this assertion by Wundt did not find universal recognition among idealist psychologists. A number of prominent empirical psychologists (e.g., Lipps, Chelpanov) consider it necessary to speak, with certain reservations, precisely about a substantial soul. It is evident from the historical outline provided that the complex of concepts about the Soul, borrowed from animistic views and called to life at a certain moment in time by the course of socio-economic development, continues to this day to leave its imprint not only on popular notions but also on philosophical and psychological systems. Many of those forces which contributed to the emergence of the concept of the Soul are still present today, and along with them, their reflection in ideology remains firmly held. Along with the development of a dualistic worldview, the problem of the relationship between the Soul and the body and the connection between them arose. Theories of interaction and psycho-physical parallelism were intended to resolve this task. Theories of interaction, which still find prominent adherents among empirical psychologists (Stumpf, Külpe, Driesch, Bergson, and others), assert that a direct connection exists between the soul and the body (despite their fundamental difference). The soul, through its acts, intrudes into the course of physiological processes, altering and directing them, and, conversely, the latter are the cause of thoughts and sensations. The theory of psycho-physical parallelism, which has several directions that differ significantly from one another, seeks to avoid a number of obvious difficulties arising in connection with this hypothesis (for example, the impossibility of reconciling it with the law of conservation of energy, etc.). Among them, the most common are: the doctrine asserting the identity of the psychic and the physical (Fechner, Wundt, Verworn), and the hypothesis recognizing only the existence of psycho-physical parallelism; this hypothesis rejects the existence of a substance of which the psychic and the physical would be attributes. A characteristic feature of all the numerous and highly confused modifications of the theory of psycho-physical parallelism must be considered the assumption of the existence of two series of phenomena, mental and material, completely closed and with laws specific to each of them. The occurrence of these processes in one of these series corresponds to the simultaneous, but completely independent, presence of quite definite phenomena in the other. Opponents of this doctrine rightly point to the gap thus arising between the psyche and matter and to the complete impossibility, while remaining at the point of view of 'parallelism', of explaining the correspondence of one series to the other. Marxism retains the concept of the soul only as a gnoseological category. The opposition of Spirit (resp. soul), as a cognizing subject, to the objectively existing world (whereby being determines consciousness) is characteristic of dialectical materialism. However, '...this opposition must not be "excessive", exaggerated, metaphysical... The limits of the absolute necessity and absolute truth of this relative opposition are precisely those limits which determine the direction of gnoseological research. Beyond these limits, to operate with the opposition of matter to spirit, of the physical to the psychic, as an absolute opposition, would be a huge mistake' (Lenin), something 'senseless and unnatural' (Engels). The physical and the psychic, the body and the soul in psychological research are not opposed to each other, but, on the contrary, represent a unity. A psychic state is nothing other than a property of matter organized in a certain way, and furthermore, functioning under certain conditions. From this it follows that one cannot represent the psychic as a "product" or "secretion" of brain matter, analogous to how bile is a secretion of the liver (a view of naive materialism). In this case, the psychic would be something extraneous to brain matter, and moreover material, i.e., a special substance, only more or less differing from any other matter. Likewise, one cannot understand the psychic as the very movement (molecular or chemical) of brain matter. The subjective is not equal to the physiological processes occurring in our nervous system, but is merely an introspective expression of a certain part of them. 'It is not the soul that thinks and feels, because the soul is only a personification, a hypostatized function or phenomenon of thinking, sensation, and volition, transformed into a special being—and it is not the brain, because the brain is a physiological abstraction, an organ torn from the integrity, from the skull, from the head, from the body, generally fixed as something independent. But the brain serves as an organ of thought only in connection with the human head and body' (Feuerbach). Idealistic psychology sought the substrate of the human 'I' and found it in the soul. Marxist psychology, on the contrary, sees the substrate of states of consciousness in the human 'I', and this 'I' is understood as a 'real sensuous being'... the body in all its complexity. Such a point of view eliminates the very concept of the soul as completely devoid of concrete content.

K. Kornilov. The very term "mental diseases" shows that psychiatry in its development was most often understood as the science of diseases of the "soul." This understanding corresponded to the idea of the soul as a certain material being, located in the heart, blood, diaphragm, brain, or other places and having a body more delicate and light than that which our physical being possesses. This crudely materialistic idea of the soul, from which Christian psychology has never parted, significantly facilitated the possibility of thinking of it as having fallen ill (having changed in its essence, having become opaque, black, etc.). The work of physicians very early led to the necessity of placing such a disease of the "spiritual being" in dependence on the disease of that physical organ in which this being had its residence, and facilitated the imperceptible and, even for its initiators, unconscious substitution of the idea of diseases of the soul with the thought of diseases of the brain. Only thanks to such a substitution did the progress of medical knowledge in the field of psychiatry become possible. However, beginning from ancient times and up to our time, the stated idea was opposed by another, connected with the assumption of the soul's ability to change its place of residence—the idea of "possession." Here, a rejection of the very concept of disease occurred, and abnormal behavior was explained by the fact that the ordinary soul either left the body entirely or remained only in a small part of its former dwelling, and its place was taken by another soul, most often an evil spirit. Such a concept, which dominated throughout the Middle Ages, not only completely retarded the development of psychiatry but also led to the death of many thousands of people who had brought upon themselves the suspicion of demonic possession and relations with the devil (witch trials). It is necessary, however, to point out that in its pure form, the concept of demonic possession did not necessarily lead to the adoption of such cruel measures as burning at the stake: in order to free the body from the evil spirit that had settled in it, it was sufficient to expel the latter. Only where the original soul itself had undergone corruption, i.e., had fallen into sin, was there a basis for insisting on the complete destruction of the body that contained it. The thought of the corruption of the soul by sin also formed the basis for the organization of the first institutions for the care of the mentally ill in monasteries, where it was assumed that it was easiest to induce the soul of a madman that had fallen into sin to repent. This thought received its full formulation in the constructs of the school of "psychic" psychiatrists that dominated in Germany throughout the entire first half of the 19th century. This school completely reversed the above-mentioned idea that diseases of the soul are caused by a lesion of the organ serving as its place of residence. The "psychics," on the contrary, thought that somatic diseases also owe their origin to the sinfulness of the soul: "If the organs of the abdominal cavity," says Heinroth, "could tell the story of their sufferings, we would learn with surprise with what force the soul can destroy the body that belongs to it." Only in the second half of the last century do modern ideas about psychiatry as a science that does not need the concept of the soul begin to be more or less firmly established. Magnan in France, Griesinger, Meynert, and Wernicke in Germany, although they refrained from participating in disputes between materialists and idealists, in reality, developed a doctrine that left no more room for the "soul." "Mental diseases" for them were equivalent to diseases of the brain, and this latter definition exhausted their entire meaning. Kraepelin, who philosophically stood on the point of view of narrow empiricism, with his practical work significantly deepened the essentially materialistic point of view of his predecessors, transferring the basis of mental diseases from the brain to the entire organism as a whole and assuming their primary source to be in various metabolic disorders. Modern German (and generally Western European) psychiatry, however, in the question of the basis of the diseases it studies, has gone not forward, but backward, insisting on the fundamental separateness of mental and physical phenomena and on the primary givenness of the former (Jaspers, Kronfeld, Schneider, even Kretschmer, and others). Russian psychiatry has long held a strictly materialistic point of view, although to a significant degree in its primitive, mechanistic aspect. The desire to exclude the concept of the "soul" even from the very name of this science has recently manifested itself in a number of proposals, mainly by representatives of the reflexological school, to replace the term "psychiatry" with another, e.g., "science of diseases of the personality," "tropopathology" (pathology of behavior), etc. It is unlikely that such a replacement is expedient, not only because it leads to a break with the terminology generally accepted in Western European science, but also in essence, since it replaces the dialectical understanding of the interrelations between the somatic and the psychic with a primitively mechanistic one. Mentally ill, a term serving to designate persons suffering from diseases, the most vivid and striking symptoms of which are the result of a disturbance in the activity of certain mental functions. See Psychiatry, Mental patients.