If Star Trek's Data were to write about the soul, it might be this self-parodyingly soulless:
Soul talk is expressive in the same way as other nondescriptive utterances, like "oh my God" or "ouch" or "yuck" or (with head nodding to music) "Yeah, that's funky." There is no clear referent for those. They don't seem to refer to or represent anything—they seem somehow pre-representational (or presentational). Soul talk, like other emotive talk, bears little relation to the goals of scientific language, and probably can't be assessed with that language. Like other expressive forms, soul talk in ordinary folk language won't have much theoretical interest, because it is rarely, if ever, trying to explain a phenomenon. In the same way that a poem is not trying to explain a phenomenon, soul talk is equally uninterested in induction, hypothesis, prediction, and corroboration. Instead, soul talk tries to express our hopes and aspirations ("I hope I see my family again in the afterlife") or to identify inspiration ("This song really speaks to my soul"), or to express feelings deeper than friendship ("I've finally found my soul mate"), or to scare people into doing something ("Your soul will burn in hellfire"), and so on.
via Soul Talk - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education.
While the use of words like "soul," is non-descriptive, not all non-descriptive utterances are merely "emotive." As we saw in our discussion of Wittgenstein, logic is non-descriptive (and hence strictly speaking meaningless (or "senseless"). And as we'll see in our upcoming discussion of Kant's Prolegomena, while a word like "soul" corresponds to nothing empirical, it can say something significant about our meaning-making tendencies -- even as these tendencies persist in trying to make everything concrete as "understanding is forced out of its sphere" of the empirical. Kant thinks of this as reason's overweening tendency to try to find a final answer that goes beyond the chain of empirical causal conditions to an uber-answer that undergirds the chain itself. In this case, "soul" is an attempt to grapple with the sense that our consciousnesses seem to have a subjective unity: to posit a "substance" that underlies the motley stream of consciousness--in all its variety and even chaos. For Kant, this is an illegitimate attempt to treat something to which we only have reflective access as something like an empirical object: to reify it, hypostatize it. But while we do best to avoid metaphysical claims about substance, this does not mean we have to give up our interest in in the subjective unity that led to them; or to make the correlative mistake of supposing that this unity -- and that consciousness generally -- is an empirical object for science. It isn't. The point is that consciousness remains a philosophical problem that is inaccessible to science. And the use of "soul" can be seen as involving not a metaphysical claim but an assertion of this problem: "soul" is a placeholder, an "x", in an equation that has no solution.
For the author of this article, there is meaningfulness to "soul" language -- but as "expressive folk language" to accompany aesthetic and ethical activity. He seems to have invented a new persuasion, Condescending Kantianism (Kantdescending? -- apologies). The legitimate use of the word "soul" reflects not a profound problem for science and philosophy alike, but merely a playground toy for making such statements as "that singer has soul" (really, he says this). But really he seems to be unaware of Kant and is thinking of Wittgenstein's related, simpler (and I think unfortunate) claim that metaphysical assertions merely amount to attempts to reify grammar.
Finally, the implication here that there is no genuine philosophical problem of consciousness reflected in the word "soul"--and that the domain of science has it covered--is merely other side of the same coin: both try to treat consciousness as an empirical object, and both try and replace an un-shakeable uncertainty with a form of faith one quasi-religious, the other quasi-scientific. Neither religion nor science need the category error.
Wes, I’d like to provide a concurring opinion. I find it frustrating that Wittgenstein was provided as an example of why “No self-respecting professor of philosophy wants to discuss the soul in class.”
Wittgenstein himself had been a (somewhat heterodox, Tolstoy-esque) Christian since WWI, and in fact gave a few lectures on religion at Cambridge. I found his published thoughts on religion qua Christianity far more interesting than those of Asma. Perhaps Seth might also find them interesting, as here we have Wittgenstein engaging with the “mystical.” A sample quote from Wittgenstein’s1938 lecture:
Suppose that someone believed in the Last Judgement, and I don’t, does this mean that I believe the opposite to him, just that there won’t be such a thing? I would say: “Not at all, or not always.”
Suppose I say that the body will rot, and another says “No. Particles will rejoin in a thousand years, and there will be a Resurrection of you.”
If some said: “Wittgenstein, do you believe in this?” I’d say: “No.” “Do you contradict the man?” I’d say: “No.”
If you say this, the contradiction already lies in this.
Would you say: “I believe the opposite”, or “There is no reason to suppose such a thing”? I’d say neither.
Suppose someone were a believer and said: “I believe in a Last Judgement,” and I said: “Well, I’m not so sure. Possibly.” You would say there is an enormous gulf between us. If he said “There is a German aeroplane overhead,” and I said “Possibly I’m not so sure,” you’d say we were fairly near.
It isn’t a question of my being anywhere near him, but on an entirely different plane, which you could express by saying: “You mean something altogether different, Wittgenstein.”
The difference might not show up in any explanation of the meaning.
Why is it that in this case I seem to be missing the entire point?
Suppose somebody made this guidance for his life: believing in the Last Judgement. Whenever he does anything, this is before his mind. In a way, how are we to know whether to say he believes this will happen or not?
Asking him is not enough. He will probably say he has proof. But he has what you might call an unshakeable belief. It will show, not by reasoning or by appeal to ordinary grounds for belief, but by regulating for all in his life.
This is a very much stronger fact–forgoing pleasures, always appealing to this picture. This in one sense must be called the firmest of all beliefs, because the man risks things on account of it which he would not do on things which are by far better established for him.
””’
Suppose someone is ill and he says: “This is a punishment,” and I say: “If I’m ill, I don’t think of punishment at all.” If you say: “Do you believe the opposite?” – you can call it believing the opposite, but it is entirely different from what we would normally call believing the opposite.
I think differently, in a different way. I say different things to myself. I have different pictures.
It is this way: if someone said: “Wittgenstein, you don’t take illness as punishment, so what do you believe?” — I’d say: “I don’t have any thoughts of punishment.”
There are, for instance, these entirely different ways of thinking first of all–which needn’t be expressed by one person saying one thing, another person another thing.
What we call believing in a Judgement Day or not believing in a Judgement Day–The expression of belief may play an absolutely minor role.
If you ask me whether or not I believe in Judgement Day, in the sense in which religious people have belief in it, I wouldn’t say: “No. I don’t believe there will be such a thing.” It would seem to me utterly crazy to say this.
And then I give an explanation: “I don’t believe in . . . “, but then the religious person never believes what I describe.
I can’t say. I can’t contradict that person.
In one sense, I understand all he says–the English words “God”, “separate”, etc. I understand. I could say: “I don’t believe in this,” and this would be true, meaning I haven’t got these thoughts or anything that hangs together with them. But not that I would contradict the thing.
You might say: “Well, if you can’t contradict him, that means you don’t understand him. If you did understand him, then you might.” That again is Greek to me. My normal technique of language leaves me. I don’t know whether to say they understand one another or not.
Thanks Daniel, very cool. He seems to be saying that religious and philosophical talk falls into the realm of the meaninglessness — but I don’t take him here (as I do in the Tractatus) to say that meaninglessness counts against it, or forbids us from productively using that kind of language or engaging philosophical problems. It merely means it fails the empirical test; which is to say he’s a Kantian — there is room for faith and talk here, just not knowledge and reference.
Incidentally, Nagel got in trouble for making a related point with regard to intelligent design (http://www.stanford.edu/~joelv/teaching/167/nagel%2008%20-%20public%20education%20and%20intelligent%20design.pdf): opponents alternate being calling it meaningless (in the sense of empirically untestable) and false. But it has to be one or the other. Nagel seems to be arguing for its probably falsity rather than its meaninglessness, which is to say that it is a legitimate empirical theory. I think Kant argued for something like its meaninglessness, and I tend to agree. I think I have other disagreements with Nagel’s essay here but haven’t had time to spell them out. But anyway, I find this Wittgenstein post very interesting, and Iespecially like: “This in one sense must be called the firmest of all beliefs, because the man risks things on account of it which he would not do on things which are by far better established for him.” Very Kierkegaardian.