The Soul on Superphysics

No Sixth Sense

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

There is no sixth sense in addition to the five enumerated-sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

If we have actually sensation of everything of which touch can give us sensation (for all the qualities of the tangible qua tangible are perceived by us through touch); and if absence of a sense necessarily involves absence of a sense-organ;

No Sixth Sense

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

There are two distinctive peculiarities by reference to which we characterize the soul:

local movement
thinking, discriminating, and perceiving.

Thinking both speculative and practical is regarded as akin to a form of perceiving; for in the one as well as the other the soul discriminates and is cognizant of something which is.

The Mind

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Since in every class of things, as in nature as a whole, we find two factors involved, (1) a matter which is potentially all the particulars included in the class, (2) a cause which is productive in the sense that it makes them all (the latter standing to the former, as e.g. an art to its material), these distinct elements must likewise be found within the soul.

The Objects of Sense

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Since it is through sense that we are aware that we are seeing or hearing, it must be either by sight that we are aware of seeing, or by some sense other than sight.

Thinking

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Turning now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and thinks (whether this is separable from the others in definition only, or spatially as well) we have to inquire (1) what differentiates this part, and (2) how thinking can take place.

The Thinking Soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Actual knowledge is identical with its object: potential knowledge in the individual is in time prior to actual knowledge but in the universe it has no priority even in time; for all things that come into being arise from what actually is. In the case of sense clearly the sensitive faculty already was potentially what the object makes it to be actually; the faculty is not affected or altered. This must therefore be a different kind from movement; for movement is, as we saw, an activity of what is imperfect, activity in the unqualified sense, i.e. that of what has been perfected, is different from movement.

The Soul of Animals

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The soul of animals is characterized by two faculties, (a) the faculty of discrimination which is the work of thought and sense, and (b) the faculty of originating local movement.

Appetite and Mind

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

These two at all events appear to be sources of movement: appetite and mind (if one may venture to regard imagination as a kind of thinking; for many men follow their imaginations contrary to knowledge, and in all animals other than man there is no thinking or calculation but only imagination).

The Animal Body

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The nutritive soul then must be possessed by everything that is alive, and every such thing is endowed with soul from its birth to its death. For what has been born must grow, reach maturity, and decay-all of which are impossible without nutrition. Therefore the nutritive faculty must be found in everything that grows and decays.