If we are animals, can we survive in a disembodied state, having lost all of our bodies, retaining only soul or form?
Here is a standard thought:
Metabolic processes, homeostasis, etc. are defining features of being animals.
In a disembodied state, one cannot have such processes.
Something that is an animal is essentially an animal.
So something that is an animal cannot survive in a disembodied state.
But here’s a parody argument:
Fur and mammalian inner ear bones (say) are defining features of being mammals.
In a furless and internally earless state, one cannot have such structures.
Something that is a mammal is essentially a mammal.
So something that is a mammal cannot survive in a furless and internally earless state.
I think 5-7 are no less plausible than 1-3. But 8 is clearly false: clearly, it is metaphysically possible to become a defective mammal that is furless and internally earless.
The obvious problem with 5, or with the inferences drawn from 5, is that what is definitory of being a mammal is being such that one should to have fur and such-and-such an inner ear. The same problem afflicts 2: why not say that being such that one should have these processes and features is definitory of being a mammal.
Metabolic processes, homeostasis, etc. are indeed only proper accidents like fur and inner ear bones. But the former flow from the essence much, much more immediately than the latter. So the latter are capable of being lost, but the former probably aren't. The reason why is that in order to lose metabolic processes and homeostasis, one would have to die. And death, by definition, is the separation of the soul from the body. But the body, as such and in toto, is part of the essence itself. It can't be lost without cessation of existence.
ReplyDeleteAnd if we drop this requirement and insist that the soul alone constitutes the human essence, then we aren't animals.
I was thinking about an arguer who thinks that the body is essential *because* it is needed for metabolic processes, homeostasis, etc.
ReplyDeleteOne could have an arguer like you who has a direct intuition that a body of some sort or other is needed to be an animal. Once one takes away the metabolic processes, homeostasis, etc., it is hard for me to see why a body--say, the mere occupation of space--is needed to be an animal.