Critique of Reason in Tymieniecka’s The Three Movements of the Soul

Abstract

The mystery of the soul has been the concern of philosophers and theologians alike ever since human beings undertook to question the depth of reality. Various and different opinions were expressed about the source of life and energy in the universe: the “world-soul” was posited as the universal initiator and sustainer of all that is. Philosophers attributed very specific powers to the human soul, even if thought to have come from the world soul. For Plato, for instance, soul is the essence of the human being, the body a mere addition and a burdensome one at that. For Plotinus, likewise soul is the being, a participated light of the intelligences and oriented to the One, while the body is a mere “image” which must be dragged along. Soul’s prerogatives have been investigated, discussed, glamorized to the point of attributing to soul divine powers -defining it as a spark of divinity. For Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and most of the medieval philosophers, soul is the principle of life, that because of which all life processes and all activities, of body and mind alike, are possible. Soul is the principle of life also at the sub-human level, be it vegetative or sentient. These latter do not present very great problems; the human soul, instead, is the most difficult to understand and analyze chiefly because of the multiple levels of its powers and activities, and because here the investigator is the investigated.