The Spirit in Man and Society

Metaphysical Notes on the Problem of the Soul, Spirit, and Spirituality

Here, we step onto yet another plane of ancient philosophical inquiry—the realm of spirit or the world of spiritual phenomena. In the history of culture and philosophy, an infinite multitude of representations concerning the soul and spirit is presented, many of which have reached us from the depths of time and, in a certain way, continue to possess us. Thus, in the languages of various peoples, one can encounter the most diverse phrases and expressions in which the word "spirit" is employed. In Ukrainian, for instance, we speak of "spiritual torments," "pain in the soul," "holy spirit," or "evil (unclean) spirit," and we use expressions such as "to summon the spirit" or "in one breath." In literary language, phrases like "the sciences of the spirit," "the spirit of the people," and "the spirit of the times" can be found. Most contemporary individuals would struggle to discern the original meaning of such phrases, as well as the essence of their very constituents—the "spirit" and the "soul." However, our ancient ancestors had a profound understanding of these concepts. In the early philosophical doctrines, the themes of "soul" and "spirit" did not merely transition from initial religious beliefs and mythology; they literally burst into these realms and have never been lost since, remaining subjects of constant attention and reflection due to the delicate nature of the theme inherited by philosophy.

When one familiarizes oneself with the positions of the first philosophical schools concerning spiritual phenomena and is ready to accept and assimilate them without regard for the preceding pre-philosophical notions, a caution must be issued. It may appear that the ancient sages were complete prophets in these matters, the forefathers of all subsequent human thought regarding the problems of the soul and spirit. In truth, they were not entirely the first; rather, they rationalized and generalized ancient knowledge and beliefs. It happened that philosophy gradually forgot its primal origins in mythology, and subsequent philosophical endeavors seldom revisited these roots, often dismissing them as excessively primitive. Furthermore, it constructed a palisade of intricate specialized terms and concepts around itself. It is evident that, for educational purposes, it will be pertinent to recall some aspects of the history of pre-philosophical views, especially since in the cultures of nations, alongside scientific and philosophical knowledge, ancient conceptions of spiritual phenomena continue to thrive. Only after this can we confine ourselves to the interpretation of these phenomena as they have manifested in modern philosophy.

Ethnologists and cultural historians have established that all the peoples of the world perceived the entirety of surrounding objects as a world of living beings, attributing animateness to nature. The English ethnologist and culturalist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) referred to the inclination toward such attributions as animism, and in his book "Primitive Culture," he sought to "trace, under the name of animism, the inherent human doctrine of spiritual beings," positing that "animism, in its full development, includes beliefs in ruling deities and the spirits subject to them, in the soul and in life after death—beliefs that manifest practically in actual worship." Tylor was perhaps the first to systematize knowledge about the evolutionary development of animistic notions, demonstrating that humans initially conceived of a personal soul or spirit, from which doctrines about more abstract spirits gradually evolved. He offers an expansive vision of the primitive human soul: "The soul is a subtle, non-material human image, akin by nature to vapor, air, or shadow. It constitutes the cause of life and thought in the being it animates. It independently and inseparably possesses the consciousness and will of its corporeal bearer in both past and present. It is capable of leaving the body and swiftly moving from place to place. Generally imperceptible and invisible, it also manifests physical power and appears to those who are asleep and awake, more often as a phantasm, a ghost, detached from the body yet resembling it. It can enter the bodies of other humans, animals, and even objects, possessing and influencing them."

Another English researcher, James George Frazer (1854-1941), established that primitive humans explained all life phenomena by the presence of a soul within animals and humans, depicted as a small human or animal figure. Human activity was attributed to the presence of the soul in the body, while sleep or death was understood as a temporary or permanent absence of it. The soul could freely leave the body through openings, most frequently the mouth or nostrils, living an independent life: traveling, hunting, and communicating with acquaintances and relatives. This belief provided explanations for dreams and the appearances of the soul's owner in the dreams of close ones. The soul's absence during sleep was associated with risk, as it might fail to return to the body for various reasons. Even today, some customs among our contemporaries retain the belief that one should not awaken a sleeping person (especially a small child) suddenly, as the soul, which travels unknown to where at that time, may not have time to return to its place in the body. The soul can leave the body not only during sleep, and if this occurs, the person may suffer from illness, madness, or even death. The soul can be summoned from the body not only by its own will but also by various evil spirits and sorcerers. There exists yet another danger: often, primitive individuals perceived their soul in their own shadow, in a mirror reflection, or in a portrait, and such an existence of the soul was extraordinarily perilous, as the shadow could be trampled upon, pricked, or cut, leading to the death of its owner. A portrait could also become an object of manipulation by an evil sorcerer.

In the pre-Christian era, it was believed that a person possessed not one but several souls, at least two: one soul corresponded to the life of the body, while the other was the soul of the personal "I," the individual as a spiritual being. When a person died, the first soul perished alongside the body (after burial), while the second soul continued to live. Therefore, physical death did not imply the definitive disappearance of the person. Among the ancient Slavs, the first "soul" (as life) was associated with the heart, while the second soul (as spirit, breath) was associated with the "womb," the innards. Peoples from various continents and even remote, isolated islands shared many striking similarities. They all believed that everything was filled with souls—humans, animals, plants; they almost uniformly distinguished between the souls of the living and the souls of the deceased. This last soul could transform into the spirit of the deceased or be born at the moment of death. The ideas of reincarnation and metempsychosis, which offered alternatives to the soul's sojourn in the afterlife after leaving the mortal body, are of considerable antiquity and widespread acceptance. It is pertinent to add that ancient humans did not merely believe in all this; they were convinced of it, knowing it to be a reality. Such individuals would have been astonished if we declared that our senses and analytical minds provide no evidence for souls and spirits. They would think we were merely playing with them, denying what was evident and known to every child.

Regarding spirits, not all distinguished them sharply from the "concept" of the soul; when they did make a distinction, they regarded spirits as beings ranked slightly lower than gods and interacting with humans more frequently than the divine. Some spirits were benevolent, serving as our helpers and protectors, while others were malevolent, causing harm to humans. In Greece, all such spirits were termed demons (δαίμων—some divine power, either a malign or beneficent spirit that often determines the fate of a person), and in Rome, they were referred to as geniuses (genius—a spirit inherent to a specific individual, family, or locality). Among spirits, there were also quite abstract entities that did not perish with material objects and encompassed a vast array of phenomena. In the ancient tradition, various terms were used to denote spirit (spiritual), such as "nous" (νούς—mind). For Anaxagoras, nous was the force through which an ordered world was created from a chaotic mixture of countless elements (homoeromata), thereby forming the cosmos. In this ancient Greek thinker’s view, active nous possessed a material, corporeal nature. Other terms employed to express the spiritual in antiquity included "logos" and "pneuma" (πνεῦμα—breath, puff, spirit); the latter corresponded to the Roman spiritus. Thus, a whole terminological array existed to represent spirit (e.g., demon—nous—logos—pneuma), which was equally used in explaining existence, the entire cosmos, and every individual thing.

As previously noted, the ancient understanding of the soul and spirit was not dismissed by the early philosophers; rather, it was integrated into their systems of thought in a rationalized form, accompanied by additional explanations. Thus, Pythagoras embraced the idea of metempsychosis. The atomic doctrine of Democritus contained elements of the ancient belief in the soul as a traveling double of the body, for when he explained the process of cognition, he posited that sight perceives images, or "idols" (εἴδωλα), that emanate from visible objects and resemble them. In turn, Plato also absorbed much from his philosophical predecessors, thoroughly articulating his own teachings on the soul in a series of dialogues, notably in works such as "The Republic," "Timaeus," "Phaedrus," and "Phaedo." Given that the subsequent transformation of these teachings through Neoplatonists and the philosophers of the patristic period reached the Middle Ages and contributed to the formation of Christian religious ideas, we shall pause to examine the nuances of Plato's view on the soul.

In the dialogues "Timaeus" and "Phaedrus," it is asserted that, in the act of creation, God (the Demiurge) first fashioned the world soul, which was invisible, before creating physical bodies. From the same mixture as the world soul, individual souls were created (all at once) in a number equal to that of the stars. God assigned one soul to each star, placing them there as if on chariots, but solely for the purpose of enabling their transition to material hosts, thus becoming living beings. Once the souls take root in bodies, they begin to experience passions through the mediation of the body. If the souls rule over these passions, their lives will be just; however, if they fall under the dominion of their passions, their lives will be unjust. Plato argues that souls are immortal; however, their lives are not without peril, as they traverse a complex journey across the various realms of the world created by the Demiurge. An unjust life in a human body leads to the soul suffering punishment for its sins for a thousand years, serving the body as a slave. Conversely, if the soul leads a just life, after three virtuous earthly existences, it returns to the celestial sphere, from which fate will again direct it to the earth after ten thousand years.

The doctrine of immortality and the transmigration of souls, which Plato expounded in "Phaedo" and "Phaedrus," held great significance for his explanation of the process of cognition, the delineation of paths for moral improvement, and the creation of a model of the ideal state. All these needs are reflected in his views on the composition of the soul. The soul is divided into two parts: the spiritual (eternal) and the corporeal (mortal). The divine spiritual part resides in the head, while the mortal part is located in the chest (torso). The corporeal part, in turn, consists of a superior and an inferior component: the superior is situated closer to the head (to heed the dictates of reason), while the inferior occupies a position beneath the diaphragm, nearer to the navel. "There they (the creators) chained this part of the soul like a wild beast that cannot be tamed, yet must be fed for the sake of its connection to the whole, as mortal beings were already destined to arise. They arranged it so that this beast would eternally stand by its trough, residing far from the rational soul, causing it the least disturbance with its noise and roaring, allowing the latter to make decisions unimpeded for the benefit of all parts of the body collectively and for each part individually," thus does Plato vividly articulate the particularities of this aspect of the soul.

In summary, according to Plato, the human soul comprises three parts: 1) the divine, constituting the essence of the soul, located in the head and representing reason (νοῦς); 2) the affective, which is nourished by noble passions, linked to the spirited nature and characterized by a love of victory (θυμός); 3) the appetitive, driven by lust and sensory desires (ἐπιθυμία).

Another formidable philosophical authority, namely Aristotle, was rightly dubbed the universal mind of antiquity. Dedicating a specific treatise to the study of the soul, he first provides a thorough analysis of the thoughts of his predecessors, and thus, thanks to his foundational erudition, researchers are able to reconstruct the systems of views held by other ancient philosophers. Aristotle himself constructs his teaching on the soul in accordance with the fundamental principles of his own metaphysics. The living, like all that exists, is a combination of matter and form. The matter of the living is the body, while the form is the soul. Matter, when considered in isolation, is merely potentiality, whereas the soul (as form) is actuality (ἐντελεχεία), the actual state of being. In defining the soul in relation to the living body, Aristotle states that "the soul is the first actuality of a natural body having organs..." He further adds that "that which enables us to live, perceive, and reason is the soul, such that it is a certain sense and form, not matter or substrate." Aristotle seeks to elucidate his notion with examples. If we say that the soul is form, it implies that it constitutes the essence of a particular body. Let us consider an axe; its essence would be its being as an axe, which constitutes its soul. Likewise, if the eye were a separate living entity, its soul would be sight, as sight is the essence of the eye as its form (the eye in itself is merely the matter of sight); with the loss of sight, the eye ceases to be an eye, except in name, just as an eye fashioned from stone or painted would not truly be an eye. Hence, for Aristotle, the soul is inseparable from the body. "Therefore, one should not ask whether the soul and body are one thing, just as one should not pose such a question regarding wax and the impression made upon it, or regarding any matter and what it is the matter of."

Attributing the presence of a soul solely to the living, Aristotle notes that a living being possesses at least one of the following characteristics: reason, sensation, movement or rest in space, as well as movement in terms of nourishment, growth, and decay. The soul is indeed the principle of these properties, characterized by vegetative ability, sensory ability, and the capacity for thought and movement. Some living beings possess all the aforementioned attributes (these would be humans), others possess only growth, movement, and sensation (the animals), and others only nourishment and growth (the plants). Aristotle rejects the conclusions of his predecessors regarding the immortality of the soul, affirming that it begins with the body and concludes its existence with it. However, there exists within his teaching on the soul one aspect pertaining to intellect (νοῦς), which has given rise to subsequent prolonged discussions in philosophy. Besides reason, as a property of the human soul, Aristotle also acknowledges another intellect that produces all things. He regards this intellect as a certain fundamental quality, akin to light: "For in a certain sense, light makes colors that exist in potentiality actual. This intellect exists separately, and is not subject to anything; it is not mixed with anything, being an activity in its essence. This intellect is not one that sometimes thinks and sometimes does not think. Only by existing separately does it exist as it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal." This intellect appears to come from outside and is bestowed upon humanity. The ability to perceive is impossible without the body; however, the intellect to which Aristotle alludes exists independently of it, and he argues that there are no rational grounds to consider this intellect as being connected to the body. Clearly, here he loses the coherence of his reasoning and makes a concession toward acknowledging the immortality, if not of the soul, then of one of its divine attributes—the intellect.

In the Neoplatonist Plotinus, a metaphysics is grounded in which we encounter something akin to the Christian Trinity. That which precedes being is termed by Plotinus the One (ἕν, μονάς) in the sense of a certain reality as the potentiality of any specific being. The second element of the Trinity is Intellect, or Spirit (νοῦς), not the intellect of any specific person, but a particular hypostasis of the One, its intellectual self-awareness. Specialists who have engaged in the interpretation and translation of Plotinus’s νοῦς have tended to translate this concept as Spirit (in an intellectual, rather than a mystical sense). The third element is the Soul. It is dual in nature: at one end (as the world Soul) it constitutes another hypostasis of the One, while at the other end it is connected to corporeal creations. "It is evident that the best, rational part of the Soul is profoundly spiritual; however, there must also exist a second part, for otherwise the Soul would not be distinguishable from the Spirit. To the property of being rational and spiritual, a second quality is added, which makes its existence unique and individual... The Soul aspires to the higher and possesses intellect and spirit, while simultaneously issuing commands, guiding, and ruling over others." Without reiterating the intricate details of Plotinus's complex thought system, let us simply note that this late ancient philosopher revives the idea of the immortality of the soul, introduces the concept of Intellect as Spirit and a hypostasis of the One, the latter of which closely approaches the essence of the Christian God.

In medieval religious philosophy, "spirit" is liberated from the burdens of matter and conceived as pure creative energy, embodied in God. The spirit emerges as a transcendent principle that begets all. The Renaissance provides alternative interpretations of "spirit," aligning humanity with God, that is, with spirit as creative potential. This marks a rise in the significance of personal individuality within societal life. From the religious-philosophical metaphysics of the Middle Ages arose a tradition considering the soul as a distinct substance, akin to the divine spiritual Absolute.

A radical shift in understanding the soul and the spiritual, as well as many other questions, commenced in the Modern era. The growing role of science drew philosophy's attention to the study of the conditions necessary for acquiring true and practically useful knowledge, ultimately leading to the emergence of questions regarding cognitive activity. In this regard, the intellectual legacy inherited by the early philosophers and scientists of the Modern era included the indispensable element of the concept of the soul and its properties. Utilizing this concept, they prioritized the detailed investigation of the cognitive faculties of the soul, not yet dismissing the thesis of the soul as a distinct spiritual substance connected in some manner to the body. Consequently, the theme of the soul frequently appears in the texts of philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries, remaining an essential characteristic of the metaphysics of this period. Even in the works of René Descartes, who revolutionized outdated notions of human spiritual properties, "soul" still occupies a respectable place. "Our soul," he writes, "inasmuch as it is a substance distinct from the body, is known to us only through that which it thinks, that is, understands, desires, imagines, remembers, feels, since these functions of the soul are various forms of thinking." We shall further return to Descartes regarding the problem of consciousness; for now, we merely illustrate how widely the concept of the soul was employed. When speaking of illustration, one must not overlook G. Leibniz, who theoretically constructed the universe from a multitude of monads (simple substances), some of which were either soul-monads or spirit-monads. Incidentally, Descartes' works are also interspersed with the term spirit (and spirits), which he, however, does not understand as the opposite of the corporeal but as a subtle material substance formed from the most mobile and lightest parts of blood, which stimulates the organs of sense, moves freely throughout the body, fills the brain, and concentrates in points of excitation.

Perhaps for the first time, Immanuel Kant critically scrutinized the concept of the soul, alongside his skepticism regarding the possibility of metaphysics achieving the status of science and concerning the empirical referents of certain categories of classical metaphysics, among which was the "soul." Gradually, influenced by philosophical criticism and the development of psychology, the concept of the soul lost its scientific burden, serving at best as a metaphorical means of succinctly denoting a collective of human psychological qualities.

"Spirit" persisted longer, not least because it remained a constant subject of examination in the authoritative systems of German idealism. For Hegel, the concept of consciousness encompassed all spiritual manifestations within humanity, ranging from feelings and volitional capacities to higher intellectual expressions, or as he termed it, "rational consciousness." Immersed in the concrete objectivity of daily life, the consciousness of individuals produces specific secondary conscious forms, which can be termed "phenomena of spirit" and which arise in a regular and historical order. Each stage of the historical advancement of consciousness possesses its own "spirit," yet it remains unrecognized by people, just as the overall connection among all individual stages—the "plan" of the whole (Absolute) Spirit—remains unrecognized. The spirit's self-knowledge is also consciousness, albeit of a second order, as the initial, object-focused consciousness can be called first-order consciousness. Humanity had yet to mature to the capacity to recognize the overall progress of the figures of Spirit, and Hegel presumably believed that it was he to whom humanity should be grateful for such titanic labor, the time for which had now arrived.

Hegel's younger contemporary, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), could not accept Hegel's philosophy, harboring a complete aversion to nearly all the classics of German idealism, and thus he spoke skeptically of the category of spirit. "In general, this 'spirit,'" he wrote, "which haunts the present German literature, is an extraordinarily suspicious type, for which one should demand a passport upon meeting." The "suspicion" surrounding spirit (as once with the "suspicion" of the soul) gradually grew, not only in the sciences studying psychological phenomena but also within the metaphysical branches of philosophical knowledge. Discussions of spirit could be somewhat tolerated only within the framework of the religious philosophical tradition.

In the later stages of Western philosophy, more attention was devoted to individual spiritual phenomena than to the holistic category of "spirit," which almost vanished from the philosophical horizon. Gradually, the concept of spirit lost its scientific character. However, this inflation did not strip it of significance as a general cultural concept: spirit, spirituality, and the spiritual are now frequently encountered in domestic literature, particularly in discussions concerning national revival, education based on national cultural traditions, and the moral betterment of society through the dissemination of religion. Such publications often elicit responses from philosophers, some of whom even strive to imbue these old terms with a new substantive meaning of a categorical nature.

Let us now summarize our reflections to determine how we should proceed with the concepts of spirit, spirituality, and soul. Do they retain certain heuristic meanings in philosophy and culture as a whole, or should we deny them a "passport" and "registration"? We believe that caution is warranted before the latter course is taken. The aforementioned concepts maintain their meaning and heuristic value by allowing for a generalized marking of a certain set of phenomena pertaining to human psychology and its qualitative state, providing the ability to delineate that class of properties in humans that stands in opposition to corporeal (physical) properties, and giving a general name to that which every individual knows about themselves: we possess (even if its location and nature remain uncertain) an inner world, a realm of knowledge, emotions, images, and perceptions. Why not refer to it using the general term spirit or spirituality? We live carrying this special, rich, and profoundly valuable world within us, and all we do is expend effort to comprehend and organize it, somehow revealing it and exchanging elements of it with others. It is so precious to us that our inner world seems more akin to ourselves than our own bodies do. Exclusively in the context presented here and further on, the term "spiritual" will refer to human psychological phenomena such as thoughts, sensations, emotions, and the like, which are partially encompassed by the concept of consciousness. We shall not employ the word "spiritual" in the elevated, rhetorical sense often used (sometimes disdainfully) to distinguish individuals with a "worthy" value horizon from the banal, brutish, bourgeois masses, which the self-proclaimed "elite" perceive as the rest of humanity. In contemporary English-language philosophical literature, the equivalent of the meaning we have assigned to "spiritual" is the term "mental" and its derivative—"mentality." The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy provides the following definition for the latter term: "Mentality is an attribute of the mind. However, what is the mind? 'Mind' is often used to denote the apparatus or mechanism that explains how or in what way individuals possess the capacity for action, rationality, emotion, perception, or imagination." The specificity and nature of the spiritual can further be elucidated through the exploration of its concrete examples.

Regarding "soul" as a concept that may currently find use, we note the following. With a holistic spiritual complex, individuals experience this wholeness during moments of emotional fervor, and it is precisely in such moments that we require some term to express the entirety of our psychological state in its unity. Such a term could indeed be "soul." Our very language demands this term; for when a poet says, "My soul, why do you mourn? My poor soul, why do you weep in vain? What do you lament?" (T. H. Shevchenko), it is desirable that there be a corresponding word to name that which mourns, weeps, and aches, especially if such a word seems lacking. Let it thus remain "soul"!