Feser: What is a Soul?

"What is a soul? Or to be more precise, what is a human soul?  Or to be even more precise, what is a human being?  For that is really the key question; and I sometimes think that the biggest obstacle to understanding what the soul is is the word “soul.”  People too readily read into it various erroneous notions (erroneous from an Aristotelian-Thomistic point of view, anyway)—ghosts, ectoplasm, or Cartesian immaterial substances.  Even the Aristotelian characterization of the soul as the form of the living body can too easily mislead.  When those unfamiliar with Aristotelian metaphysics hear “form,” they are probably tempted to think in terms of shape or a configuration of parts, which is totally wrong.  Or perhaps they think of it in Platonic terms, as an abstract universal that the individual human being participates in—also totally wrong.  Or they suspect that since it is the form of the living body it cannot coherently be said to subsist apart from that body—totally wrong again. So let us, for the moment, put out of our minds all of these ideas and start instead with the question, what is a human being?"

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Feser: "How very large her feet were"

"Anscombe and Geach relate a story according to which Aquinas once came upon “a holy nun who used to be levitated in ecstasy.” His reaction was to comment on how very large her feet were. “This made her come out of her ecstasy in indignation at his rudeness, whereupon he gently advised her to seek greater humility.” " 

~Edward Feser: Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide)

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Edward Feser: Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide)

Recommended reading: Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide) by Edward Feser

"One of the most influential philosophers and theologians in history, St. Thomas Aquinas was the father of modern philosophy of religion, and is infamous for his "proofs" for God’s existence. In this cogent introduction to the great Saint's work, Edward Feser argues that you cannot fully understand Aquinas' philosophy without his theology and vice versa. Covering his thoughts on the soul, natural law, metaphysics, and the interaction of faith and reason, this will prove indispensable for students, experts or the general reader." --Amazon review

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