The immortality of the soul is among the most consequential matters in all of philosophy. The stakes could not be higher for the individual or society, for what is at issue is whether the moral, sacred, and religious dimensions of human life ought to retain the primacy of place our civilization has historically acceded to them. If death is simply the end of existence, then the satisfaction of our material wants displaces every other concern, religious or moral.
Most contemporary philosophers view the immortality of the soul as a quaint notion, rendered obsolete by modern science and unsupported by any serious rational argumentation. This cavalier attitude is perhaps surprising, because the immortality of the soul was long regarded as a truth of reason rather than of divine revelation, and was defended by first-rate thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and Leibniz.
As its title suggests, Immortal Souls by Edward Feser provides a robust philosophical defense of the immortality of the soul. The scope of the book reaches far beyond this one topic, however, as Feser methodically exposits and defends the entire Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics of the human person, addressing in depth such topics as personal identity, freedom of the will, perception and cognition, phenomenal consciousness, and artificial intelligence. The result is an extraordinarily comprehensive and detailed sweep through contemporary philosophy of mind, addressing nearly every major topic of interest. Feser makes a forceful case that Thomism remains a live option, able to resolve many seemingly intractable problems at the intersection of philosophy and the sciences of cognition.
Immortal Souls is pitched at the same level as Feser’s recent foray into metaphysics: Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. The prose style is straightforward and direct, the argumentation goes right to the point, and the tone is scholarly but not pedantic. Feser’s special talent for distilling complex philosophical discussions down to their essentials is on full display, and though the book is dense with argumentation, it contains none of the superfluous exposition and technical obfuscation that so often clutters academic writing.
Nevertheless, Immortal Souls is a difficult book, but it is only so to the extent that it deals with an intrinsically difficult subject matter. It should be accessible to educated readers without a philosophical background, even though they are likely to find it a challenging read and one that demands close attention. Those who work their way through its five hundred plus pages will come away with a solid grasp of the current state of play in contemporary philosophy of mind, which is a richly interdisciplinary field that incorporates findings from psychology and cognitive science in addition to the traditional categories of metaphysics and epistemology. Feser displays an impressive breadth of knowledge in this area, showing himself conversant not only with Thomism and the analytic tradition, but with recent discussions that draw upon phenomenology and empirical psychology as well.
Unlike many of his analytically trained peers, Feser has a strong sense of the historical “big picture”. He recognizes up front that theses like the immortality of the soul are bound to seem incredible to a certain kind of modern reader. This is due less to the impact of any specific argument, and more to the pervasive influence of the “mechanistic” explanatory framework unconsciously adopted by most philosophers. While this framework excels at enabling the prediction and control of physical events, it falters when applied to the life sciences and fails completely when extended into the psychological domain. Many of the so-called “perennial” problems in the philosophy of mind arise only because the mechanistic model breaks down when applied to the most salient features of mentality, such as consciousness and intentionality.
As Feser repeatedly demonstrates, the actual arguments which are taken by contemporary philosophers to have put paid to the traditional view of the soul are far weaker and more tenuous than most of them realize. Consequently, much of Feser’s argumentative work is accomplished not just by rebutting specific arguments, but by showing how the Aristotelian-Thomist coherently and systematically explains mental phenomena that seem resistant to explanation on the mechanistic approach. Once the older framework is applied to the same problem set, new conceptual possibilities begin to suggest themselves, and theses like the immateriality and immortality of the soul begin to lose their air of implausibility.
Immortal Souls covers so much ground, and is so dense with argumentation, it would be impossible to survey every topic it addresses in a short review. We can, however, call attention to two major themes that recur throughout the work.
The first is that the common sense, pre-theoretical understanding of agency and selfhood is fundamentally correct and can be rationally grounded by applying to it the hylomorphic categories of substance, matter, and form. Revisionary theories that attempt either to eliminate the self or reduce it to an impersonal substrate are shown to lack the solid empirical grounds meretriciously claimed for them, and they tend to collapse into incoherence under scrutiny. Feser’s defense of free will illustrates this theme nicely, as he succinctly and tersely swats down a number of objections to it which are taken as decisive by their proponents, including several much-touted neuroscientific arguments which simply do not support the kinds of sweeping, revisionist conclusions often drawn from them.
A second major theme that recurs throughout Immortal Souls is that much of the current philosophical deadlock in the study of the mind stems from a failure to recognize the full scope of conceptual possibilities available. Among the most interesting discussions in the book are those addressing consciousness and intentionality, two of the most important topics in the study of mind. Many philosophers start from the assumption that matter is exhausted by its structural and dynamical properties, giving rise to what is known as the “hard problem” of consciousness. The problem, which has a special air of insolubility, is to explain how the qualitative aspects of first-person experience fit into a material world seemingly devoid of such features. As the phrase suggests, these same philosophers also take it that there is an “easy” problem, which is to explain how a physical system can manifest thought or “intentionality”. It is widely assumed that this “easy” problem can be solved, at least in principle, by conceiving of the mind as a computational system realized by the brain. This thesis raises the possibility of machine intelligence—if thinking can be physically implemented by mere neurons, then there is no principled reason to deny that it could also be implemented by a computer.
From the Thomist perspective, this basic approach to the problem set has it backwards: it is intentionality rather than consciousness which highlights the immateriality of the human intellect, whereas consciousness is properly understood as an embodied phenomenon. With regards to intentionality, Feser argues that there are two central features of human cognition that fall outside the scope of physical explanation: the fact that we can think thoughts with determinate contents, and that we can engage in reasoning of a formally exact nature, such as a logical deduction or geometric proof. To drive these points home, Feser ties together several semantic “indeterminacy” arguments which feature prominently in recent analytic philosophy, and he shows how they all dovetail with the hylomorphic thesis that material things are by their nature indeterminate, as it is immaterial form rather than inchoate matter which contributes determinacy to things. In addition to showing that the intellect must be immaterial, these arguments undercut any suggestion that artificial intelligence might literally instantiate the equivalent of human intentionality.
With regards to the so-called “hard problem”, Feser marshals several considerations drawn from the recent literature on embodied cognition to show that consciousness is inextricably tied to extrinsic physical factors such as the comportment of the body in relation to the environment and how a person stands poised to act. Taken along with the arguments for the immaterial intellect, these considerations paint a picture of the human person as essentially embodied but not exhaustively so—the traditional hylomorphic understanding of the human being as a rational animal. This understanding of human personality runs counter to the widespread modern assumption that some variation on Cartesian dualism is the only way in which the mind might prove to be immaterial in nature. The overlooked Aristotelian-Thomist alternative rejects the modern framing of the issues, and once this framing is discarded, we can begin to see new paths forward as we wrestle with the mind-body problem.
Having established that we are essentially but not entirely corporeal, Feser concludes with the advertised case for the immortality of the soul. His basic argument, drawn largely from Aquinas, is that the immaterial intellect is metaphysically such that it cannot lose its structural integrity and go out of existence in the fashion of a composite physical thing. Once the soul comes into existence, it does not have the right kind of constitution to go out of existence, at least not in the order of nature. Feser’s discussion of this matter is judicious and measured, and he strives to assert only what can be established through philosophical reflection, even though there is surely much more to be said about this topic if we accept the deliverances of divine revelation.
All in all, Immortal Souls is an impressive foray into contemporary philosophy, and it represents precisely the kind of forward-facing Thomism that the broader intellectual culture needs most at present. It is one thing to argue for the superiority of the Thomist system in the abstract and from the high perch of historical scholarship. It is another thing entirely to put that system to the test by applying it methodically and laboriously to the challenges of present-day science and philosophy, dealing in concrete specifics rather than erudite philosophical generalities.
Philosophical questions surrounding the mind make an ideal proving ground for modern-day Thomism, for it is here that the natural sciences are still in a state of development and are thus open to input from empirically informed philosophy. With the rise of urgent questions surrounding artificial intelligence, information theory, and the nature of free will and consciousness, we are perhaps in a unique position to appreciate the conceptual poverty of the scheme we have inherited from the early modern era.
We should hope that Immortal Souls will inspire more books like it, presenting to the world a confident brand of Thomism conversant with the intellectual world of the present and more than able to meet its challenges head-on.
Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature
By Edward Feser
Editiones Scholasticae, 2024
Paperback, 548 pages
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A former jewish researcher into left brain/right brain in the 1970s with whom I had the privilege of spending a weekend in discussion, told me he lost interest in the brain when he realised the soul uses the brain. He invited me to consider the phenomenon of a good number of alzehimer patients who miraculously return before dying. For him, the soul envelopes the body, using the brain stem as an entrance to use the brain. I have no idea how his conviction sits with Catholicism, but it profoundly touched my own conception of body-soul. As the brain shuts down in alzehimers the present scientific notions would exclude the return of the person prior to dying. Also the phenomenon of virtually brainless people walking around with a head full of liquid. These people defy our present understanding of the brain.
I would add he considered very dangerous the assertions that consciousness is merely a brain-based phenomenon.
We read: “As the brain shuts down in Alzheimer’s the present scientific notions would exclude the return of the person prior to dying.”
Fascinating, as an analogue for, say, for those in the Church who go amnesiac about the Mystical Body of Christ, but then might–I say might—conduct an “exit interview” on Synodality. In the secular world, the routine ‘what worked, and what didn’t”? But instead of an exit interview, a redundant and self-validating Synod on Synodality!
Four Points:
FIRST, most of what roils the Church today had its dry run in the United States under the so-called “Call to Action” in the late 1970s, and then the follow-up RENEW program. About RENEW, in 1987 the USCCB did do a pulse check, flagging “the tendency toward a generic Christianity; AND the need for greater balance and completeness; AND the cognitive dimensions of faith need more emphasis: AND the Eucharist needs broader definition and an emphasis on sacrifice and worship”.
SECOND, likely the most avant-garde experiment, in the Archdiocese of Seattle, included the opening of St. James Cathedral for “Dignity” Masses for the homosexual faction. And, at the nearby Jesuit parish—not unlike today on the world stage, the proposed LGBTQ Jubilee 2025 celebration in Rome at the Jesuit Church of the Gesu. Like COVID, the whole species-jumping virus has gone pandemic!
THIRD, if even one of the ten post-synodal Study Groups on “hot-button issues” were assigned to do less “walking together” and more standing back…would their exit interview look anything like the public Letter handed to the archbishop in Seattle in 1985 (now healed) by the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio (following a Visitation)?
FOURTH, as with Feser’s SOUL AND BODY mystery of each person…in the soul and body of the Church today, how, exactly, does the Holy Spirit fit into the Mystical Body of Christ” A Church which is both charismatic and institutional? In a synodal Church—or a post-church Synod ?—what might be the possible relevance of the Seattle post-Visitation Letter, which reads in part:
“The need to bring into clear focus—working together with priests, religious and theologians—certain teachings of the Church and their implications for the pastoral practice of the Archdiocese. These include the role of conscience in making moral decisions; the role of the Magisterium in giving definitive guidance in matters of faith and morals; the nature and mission of the Church, together with its sacramental and hierarchical structure; an anthropology which provides an authentic understanding of the dignity of the human person; and a Christology which correctly reflects our Catholic faith concerning Christ’s divinity, His humanity, His salvific mission, and His inseparable union with the Church [….] In particular, the need to present more clearly the Church’s teaching concerning the permanence and indissolubility of marriage [….] Greater vigilance in upholding the Church’s teaching, especially with regard to contraception and homosexuality [….]”
SUMMARY: Deja Vu! What worked, and what didn’t? And, like the soul and the brain, is there also an irreducible difference between what the Church IS, and what it DOES (councils, synods, town hall meetings)?
The defense of the Soul of the Church Peter, was arguably written by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre: “They have Uncrowned Him.”
Christ, the King of Love enthroned in the inner-sanctum of the tabernacles of the world was set to one side by official decree by the diseased Rome contaminated by the virus of freemasonic origin: Post-Conciliarism.
The mystical Body of Christ does indeed have a problem operating via the Apostasy in Rome.
I enjoyed your comment Peter at least as much as the excellent piece by Dr Nicolson.
Wishing you a happy feast of the Incarnation : the source of our Hope for an end to the 60 years of crass renewal and a beginning of restoration.
By the way. The introductory image above, a rare photo is a soul on an evening stroll.
Aquinas, following mentor Albert the Great, understood that the Man, in his immaterial nature or soul is more than a rational animal. I would argue that the soul finds its immortality more in the reality of its moral propensity. That Man is also a moral animal.
That he can determine good from evil radically distinguishes him from the material. And as such provides the evidence by force of his nature toward the good, which itself transcends the material of his immortality.
Added to my comment is its affinity to Feser on intentionality, the representation of things. A moral perceptiveness is the epitome of self reflective knowledge. We know we exist, and we contemplate knowledge of the good toward the eternal nature of that transcendent end.
Dear Fr Peter,
Could we not also consider that added to the moral perceptiveness we are the only beings that seek brain to brain couplings with the Divine? Language and Cult distinctively define mankind: language enabling the self-reflective knowledge you mention? It is surely the knowledge of the Divine hidden within us as (Genetic?) reminiscence of Eden that moves our souls to seek the Divine via the expression of Cult*.
* In all of anthropology, never has a tribe been documented without Cult.
Not quite “genetic,” but quite otherwise in the sense that the soul is infused directly by God, not by the parents. But, about “the knowledge of the Divine hidden within us,” or about profound “memory,” there’s this from Benedict XVI:
“The first so-called ontological level of the phenomenon of conscience consists in the fact that something like an original memory [!] of the good and the true (they are identical) has been implanted in us, that there is an inner ontological tendency within man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, toward the divine…This anamnesis of the origin, which results from the god-like constitution of our being [!], is not a conceptually articulated knowing, a store of retrievable contents. It is …an inner sense, a capacity to recall, so that the one whom it addresses, if he is not turned in on himself, hears its echo from within. The possibility for and right to mission rest on this anamnesis of the Creator [!], which is identical to the ground of our existence [!]. The gospel…must be proclaimed to the pagans, because they themselves are yearning for it in the hidden recesses of their souls” (“Conscience and Truth,” 1991, 2000; then in “On Conscience: Two Essays by Joseph Ratzinger,”” Ignatius/National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2007).
Dear Mr Cracked Nut. Brain to Brain is communication. Self reflection in the act of knowing something indicates awareness of oneself as radically distinct from what we know. Opening the mind to inquiry. What are they? What is their purpose? How do I relate? That innate ability to apprehend distinctions in self reflective knowing is the trigger that initiates reason. And with reason language. Symbols that are vectors of understanding. Language started with our giving names to things. Representing things [intentionality] with names.
But birds and apes can communicate to each other with sounds. Only Man perceives the manner by which we act among each other, toward things in general whether it’s either good or bad, good or evil. That we can decide either or, whereas animals act instinctively in set patterns of behavior. Man in having the faculty to name things is able to analyze parts of things, from visible features to purpose and behavior.
Cult, or the tendency to worship is grounded in reasoning on the nature of things, their end, the apprehension of causality. The conceptualization of good, of greatness, of universals [Plato]. Ideas of a greater good or power as AA addresses it. Man in recognizing the par excellence of the good by nature of the natural law within [prescient knowledge] has the propensity to envision a perfect good. As we find in Socrates, developed by Plato’s Ideas [the perfect forms of things, universals known by the mind], and articulated metaphysically by Aristotle.
So it’s not language that enables self reflection, rather it’s the mind’s capacity to apprehend the distinction of self from what it perceives externally that is the ground for language. The faculty must exist prior to the articulation.
Thank you for your kind reply Fr Peter. I was thinking of language along the lines of Chomsky’s I-Language, or faculty for internal thought (necessarily prefiguring speech for buolinguists) and of “Cult of the Divine” as an Instinct – the “Cult Instinct”, since it is as universal as the “Language Instinct”.
Read “Biolinguistics”. Telephone keyboard issue.
Insofar as Chomsky on interior, intellectual thought he’s correct. When we apprehend things and seek to define them, we form ideas prior to external communication. At its source, language is an innate, interior process by which we form ideas, translated into symbolic images as the basis for thought, and finally external communication.
Language, beginning with apprehension, a spiritual faculty of the intellect forms quasi material images that becomes the basis for forming signs or words as language, language the means of communication. Man, a social creature is a communicator. For example, Romans were noted orators as well as warriors.
And yes. We can engage in brain to brain communication with God, whose ‘brain’ is pure intellect, pure love in contemplation, although God’s language is indecipherable, he posits knowledge in our soul.
Mr Cracked Nut. Simply put what you suggest is correct regarding prescient knowledge, not infused knowledge [infused knowledge relates to the gifts of grace not to what is in the soul by nature], rather potency within the soul of Man to understand things like the part and the whole, opposites. This is true particularly in regard to good and evil. We don’t call it genetic because it’s an integral dimension of the immaterial human soul. In that sense language ‘enables’ as you say the apprehension of the intellect in reflective self knowledge in the act of knowing things.
Thank you for your philo-spiritual clarifications Fr Peter.
For many of us, reading Dr Feser is akin to drinking with a firehose in our face. I would appreciate a synopsis or executive summary that I could appreciate and share with friends at our table.
I would like to see more coverage of Divine Mysteries and Miracles.
Thank you, Dr. Nicholson, for this fine review. I don’t yet have this book by Dr. Feser, and so I don’t know if Feser makes any reference (at least in the bibliography) to a book that was published a quarter-century ago and would nicely complement the discussion: John W. Cooper, “Body, Soul & Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate” (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000). Cooper remains “properly and fashionably ‘holistic’ about human nature while yet affirming the ‘dualism’ implicit in Scripture and tradition” (quoting one of the endorsements on the back cover).
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” C.S. Lewis