People have always been trying to recognize their nature and understand all peculiarities of the work of their body. Moreover, people tried to determine what role body plays in human life. There were different points of view on this question throughout the history. Approaches to this issue came and went. At one period of time, philosophers thought that body is the main part of our life and people should take care of it. Time passed and people started to think that our body is just a repository for our eternal soul and that is why existence should be devoted to attempts to save our soul and prepare it for the further life.
Each period of history presented its own vision of this question. Ancient world, which gave birth to philosophy and made such names as Plato, Aristotle and Socrates famous all over the world, always had interest to this issue. There were a lot of various approaches to this question suggested by different philosophers. Homers understanding of relations between body and soul and Epicurus vision of human life were attempts to describe this important issue.
There was a great number of different approaches which tried to add something new to this topic. In this work I shall investigate the most interesting of them and make some conclusions. However, my thesis is that body is a very important part of our life and we should do everything to take care of it and guarantee its prosperity.
One of the first to think about this problem was Homer. Ideas of soul and body and their mutual relations can be seen in his works Iliad and Odyssey. He touches this issue, describing this phenomenon in different ways. One the one hand, it is something which is very valuable and which a person risks when he is fighting. In case of a persons death he losses it. One the other hand, Homer describes it as something which a person is deprived of in case of his/her death and travels around the underworld.
Sometimes, these two notions are compared and said to be the same, however the main thing is that Homer sees no possibility for a body to survive without the soul. If the soul detaches from a body, it cannot exist. It was one of the first descriptions of mutual relations between spiritual and material in human being. Homer states these ideas in his works, many times underlining importance of cooperation between these two main notions of human being.
He underlines the fact, that these phenomena are equally important for a man. Mans body is responsible for a persons life in material world, while his/her soul guarantees a mans further existence in underworld. Homer does not give preference to one of these words, that is why it is possible to state that he considered them to be of the same importance for a human being.
Another famous ancient Greek philosopher which investigated this issue was Epicurus. He is famous for his unusual approach to the question of life, body and soul. According to Epicurus, there are only two substances in the world which are atoms and void. All physical objects consist of atoms. That is why it is logic that our body is also made of atoms as it has different properties. These distinctions are conditioned by different properties of atoms which compose these objects. The void is a substance in which these atoms move. With this in mind, it becomes clear that human soul is also made of atoms.
Though, these atoms differ from atoms which compose our body. Atoms, which are components of our soul, are very fine and they are located all over our body. This fact, according to Epicurus, gives a person ability to have sensations or feel pain or pleasure. Moreover, certain number of atoms is concentrated somewhere in the chest and it is responsible for some higher functions (Epicurus, n.d.). Epicurus underlined strong dependence between soul and body.
If a person looses all his soul atoms he dies. On the contrary, if the body dies the soul cannot exist anymore. Resting on these facts, it is possible to say, that there is no mystical punishment after death as there is nothing to punish.
Epicurus was also famous for his unusual approach to idea of happy life. Being sure that there is nothing mystical after a persons death and as a result a man has nothing to fear, Epicurus promoted very easy and joyful style of life. He is a famous adherer of hedonism. This learning states that pleasure is the only thing which each man should aspire. That is why his concept of happy life was quite interesting and even challenging.
He stated that a person is happy when he abstains from unnecessary desires and achieves an inner tranquility by being content with simple things and preferring satisfaction from philosophical conversation with friends and close people to pursuit of physical pleasures (Epicurus, n.d.). Epicurus does not deny such things as sex, vine or entertainments. He outlines that they are integral parts of our life however, a person could become happy only when he recognizes his inner needs and determines his priorities. Moreover, distinction between necessary and unnecessary desires was suggested by Epicurus (Epicurus, n.d.).
Necessary desires are those which can make people happy, all the rest are unnecessary. Epicurus considered that fear of punishment after death and fear of death could prevent a person from being happy. That is why, the main aim of Epicurus philosophy is to ascertain people that there is nothing to fear as there is no life after death.
Plato was another philosopher which investigated issue of relations between soul and body. Due to some historical peculiarities of development of ancient Greek philosophy, there was no clear image of afterlife and existence of the soul after a persons death. That is why Plato was interested in this issue. In his famous dialogue Phaedo Plato tells us about this question. The author cogitates about the question of immortality of the soul. Socrates’ arguments which support this idea are taken as a basis for these cogitations and Plato tries to investigate this issue. Moreover, there is another important question raised in this work.
It is whether the soul, if it really exists, still possesses some of its qualities in case of a bodys death. This debates show the reader Platos point of view on this question. The main idea is that the soul no longer exists after a persons death. Moreover, Plato puts the soul somewhere between intelligible and perceptible being, outlining its unclear character.
However, a persons body is more likely to be destructed than its soul. With this in mind, it is possible to come to conclusion that Plato had his own idea of relation between soul and body, supposing that they are also connected, though our soul is more likely to survive after a bodys death as “souls of the dead exist somewhere, whence they come back to life” (Phaedo 72a).
Another attempt to investigate this complicated question is made in Platos next dialogue Phaedrus. It can be considered to be the next part of the previous work. It deals with definition of the nature of the soul.
Socrates suggests that it is impossible to give accurate account of the nature of the soul however, it is possible to draw some analogies in order to understand its nature better. The main idea presented in this dialogue is that body is just a temporary container for souls of mortals, though it is housed in bodies of Gods forever. It is the only difference between these souls. However, for mortals soul means hope for reincarnation as it is immortal and can find another body.
Having analyzed the following data, it is possible to say that the question of relations between soul and body was very important in ancient world. Philosophers tried to understand main peculiarities of this bond. It should be admitted that Epicurus idea of relations between soul and body seems to be the most convincing as it gives direct answers and underlines that both these notions have the same importance for people.
Moreover, his idea of happy life is a perfect example of how a person should live in order to be satisfied with his existence. With this in mind, it is possible to say that the issue of mutual relation between body and soul is a very ambiguous question even nowadays.
Reference List
Epicurus. Web.
Plato. (360 B.C.E.). Phaedo. Web.