Individual Excellence: Part 1-viii: Soul

9 March 2024

As readers of this blog know, I encourage questions, doubts, and correspondence as my intent is to be as clear and consistent as possible.  A kind, thoughtful reader sent a detailed email seeking clarification on three issues.  This blog consists of those clarifications.

The issues of concern are the meanings of soul, existential phenomenology, and the conscious/unconscious duality.  The reader explicitly (and reasonably) asked for a definition of soul:

Soul=self=psyche, “n. 1. The animating and vital principle in man credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and conceived as forming an immaterial entity distinguished from but temporally coexistent with his body.  6. A central or integral part of something; vital core” (Morris, 1975, p. 1234).  The purpose of this entire book can be seen as the elaboration of a conception of soul but, to put it in the simplest terms, I see human beings as active, embodied, situated intelligences.  That means we are shaped as much by our physicality as our mentality.  In parallel, we shape both our bodies and our minds with our conscious and unconscious choices.  As such, I see the soul/self/psyche as the whole human being i.e., existing from the highest head hair to the sole of the feet and the ends of each finger.  That understanding does not dispute the soul/self/psyche as the animating and vital principle of human beings, but that animating energy is fully material and coexistent, unfortunately, only with and through materiality i.e., I have no evidence demonstrating “life after death,” itself an existential and empirical oxymoron.

When I run, row, lift, walk, or swim I have a better day.  There are neurochemical reasons for this and there are attitudinal reasons for this and, ultimately, if I keep doing this there is physiological capacity that is improved in me i.e., I can run more easily, I tire less quickly, and I can respond more readily.  Dualists, those who, like Descartes, argue that the mind and body are two separate but related parts, could argue these are physical, bodily improvements with no bearing on the soul.  Now, because soul is the word under examination, it should not be used as though easily understood so I will clarify.

Can anyone, who has had even a mildly successful string of strength, endurance, or flexibility improvements, honestly claim these improvements failed to improve her attitude, mood, and outlook?  Exercise is one of my less enjoyable activities so getting to it is even more gratifying as there’s an accompanying sense of self- and life-mastery each time I think, “yeah, I’m getting this done, I’m improving myself.”  Look at that last word.  If the equation self = soul = psyche is valid, improving myself is improving all of me.  And that’s why I have an increasingly difficult time buying into dualism.

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Phenomenology, “n. 1. The study of all possible appearances in human experience, during which considerations of objective reality and of purely subjective responses are temporarily left out of the account” (Morris, 1975, p. 919).  This is a devil of a concept to nail down, but, as usual, my last resort, Morris, came through.  There is brilliance in that definition with a few key terms: temporarily being the most important.  I cannot speak for other proponents of existential phenomenological research (EPR), but, for me, the steadfast reliance on the Aristotelian A=A is key.  In plainer English, reality is hypothetically suspended in favour of broader, narrower, more granular, or even more macroscopic perspectives on the phenomena under observation.  A good street translation of A=A is what you see is what you get.  While the identity of existents (the essence of realist metaphysics) is not questioned, the fullness or range of meanings, details, and implications of that existent remain open, per phenomenological study.  EPR focuses on the psychology of human experience as conveyed and viewed through eyes newly refreshed and cleared of prior visions.  But, the other factor that aligns this work with 20th-century physics, is temporality, or time.  That is, at different times in our lives, we see the same existent differently, though not so differently as to question its existence or essential identity.  To bring this all back to our main text, how can we buy into Heraclitus’ premise, that life is flux, and not account for the untameably individual slivers of oh so precious time each of us is awarded between dust and dust?

In last week’s blog I credited two teachers for turning me on to this, but the interpretive mind is at play in almost everything that interests me: art, music, stories, buildings, cities, water, farms, people, love, excellence and freedom.  None of these is possible without physicality whether it’s the plucking of lute strings or the foundations of skyscrapers.  That physicality is an essential part of the character of those artifacts.  Those artifacts, each time they’re sensed or experienced, are subject to interpretation.  Those interpretations change over time, both Earthly time and the time within individual human lives.  For example, Commerce Court West, at King and Bay Streets in Toronto, designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners (1973) has undergone radically different interpretations within my own lifetime.

My family of origin moved to the GTHA (Greater Toronto-Hamilton-Area) in 1967.  On occasional weekends, I would travel into Toronto as a boy with my father, when he had work to do.  At that time, he worked in the 34-storey limestone building, Commerce Court North.  We must have seen Commerce Court West under construction, but I have only vague recollections of that.  My focus was on my father, and his context, and joy in my ability to play with adding machines that were made available at each visit.

Commerce Court West was opened (in 1973), a shining, sleek, silver-white testament to Canada’s coming of age…but I didn’t think that way in 1973!  And that’s the point: that boy was eventually educated and trained as an architect and heritage consultant able to see such artifacts in broader contexts.  Yet I cannot walk by that building without nearly seeing my father, standing on the plinth facing Bay Street, waving to me as I walked up from Union Station, to meet him.  What I hope is noticeable is that my first read on these buildings was as a boy and son, my second as someone conversant with architecture, and the third as a reflective older man looking back on what his father meant to him.

While this exploration is not itself existential phenomenological research, it attempts to demonstrate why EPR and other interpretive arts are so valuable.  Aristotle was right, Commerce Court West is Commerce Court West, so long as it stands.  If this indulgence in personal memory was successful, Commerce Court West is also a repository of memories, probably for tens of thousands of people who have worked or interacted at that locus.  Interpretation is essential for gaining fuller understandings of all manner of things.  And that’s why a few of the sixteen attributes listed as dimensions of the self/soul/psyche have an interpretive dimension.  (Readers will see that summary chart in the next few weeks.)

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Finally, my corresponding reader asked about the conscious/unconscious duality.  In last week’s blog that duality was left to itself as simply existing.  I still wish to leave it that way as I have nothing authoritative to say about it as my experience is that it manifests uniquely within each person I’ve worked with.  Some people have most of their values forward and readily to hand; others step back with that far-away look as they go inside to see what strands are pulling on them in relation to the matter before them.  Per Heraclitus’ flux, the conscious/unconscious interplay of energy seems ceaseless, variable, and pregnant with the capacity to offer meaning to our experiences.  And meaning is damned near everything. 

To be continued next week.

Dan Chalykoff is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying).  He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes.  He writes to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery.  Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.

References

Morris, W. (Ed.) (1975). The Heritage illustrated dictionary of the English language.  American Heritage Publishing Co, Inc.