Making Sense Workshop 6: The Soul

The Affective Experience Lab’s ‘Making Sense’ workshops bring together colleagues from across disciplines to reflect on key themes that relate to our shared interest in affect, emotion and embodiment.

Do you ever refer to ‘soul’? If so, in what ways? What does it mean to understand and to act in the light of these words. A considerable literature on embodiment, new materialism and posthumanism debates the content and norms of ‘being human’. The notion of (the) soul, at first glance, has little purchase in this. Yet, references to soul, and more to the adjectives soulful and soulless, are common in informal speech and even appear in academic writing. Further, literature and political discussions around ‘being human’ that do not refer to soul draw on and affirm ‘worth’ (A. N. Whitehead’s term) which their own categories of analysis do little or nothing to support but which the category of soul has traditionally articulated. ‘Soul-talk’ is about mattering.

The removal of references to soul in scientific literature of all kinds is a large theme. Nevertheless, the issues ramify into very wide, indeed boundless, questions of cultural change and of foundational philosophy. How, then, to shape a cogent discussion is a large consideration?

In this informal discussion, Roger Smith will draw on his recent work on his new book, Soul-talk. Firstly, he will present an overview of usages of the notion of soul and then introduce a more focused informal philosophical discussion of how the soul can be understood to enact values (rather than merely be viewed as a substance, ‘the soul’).

Suggested reading

1. Kugelmann, The Soul in Soulless Psychology, pp. 1–15. [Available via Durham University Library] (Also see ch. 9 ‘soul as a psychological category’, pp. 232–76.)
2. Roger Smith, draft materials from Soul-talk: Introduction, pp. 1–3; Ch. 2, on contemporary usage, pp.15–17.

1. Cottingham, John (2020). In Search of the Soul: A Philosophical Essay. Princeton:Princeton University Press.
2. von Stuckrad, Kocka (2021). A Cultural History of the Soul: Europe andNorth Americafrom 1870 to the Present.New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress.

About the speaker

Dr Roger Smith is Reader Emeritus in the History of Science, Lancaster University.

His research has centred on the history of the relations of mind and brain, linked to the rich history of views connecting ‘being human’ and nature as well as a philosophical topic. His most recent book is The Sense of Movement: An Intellectual History (Process Press, 2019). Other publications include Trial by Medicine, Inhibition: History and Meaning in the Sciences of Mind and Brain (1992); The Fontana History of the Human Sciences (1997); and Being Human: Historical Knowledge and the Creation of Human Nature (2007).

Note: Light lunch will be provided.

The workshop is hosted by the Affective Experience Lab, co-led by Fraser Riddell, so feel free to get in touch with him for more information or if you have problems in accessing the reading materials.