“Nothing Nous Under the Sun” - a review of Feser’s Immortal Souls

There are two temptations for a lot of philosophers dabbling in what are culturally considered to be theological topics. The first is to lean in too hard on the link between the two disciplines, thinning the line between faith and reason to the point of semi-rationalism. The second is to take an overly skeptical approach in order to respect the line between faith and reason, leaving one wondering if there is any connection at all. What is helpful in Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature by Edward Feser is that he articulates clearly his approach to this treatment on the rational soul and its faculties. Like his Five Proofs for the Existence of God, this book is meant to serve as a praeambula fidei. The method and conclusions presented in this work are necessary for a reasonable Christian faith, but they need not require supernatural faith in order to recognize their veracity. Though in doing so, one would recognize the clear service they provide to the Christian Faith and would hopefully make one open to faith.

It might surprise one picking up this book that something like the soul, taken for granted by virtually every human community other than the predominant one from 15 minutes ago, would need nearly 500 pages of defense. Immortal Souls, which requires so much space inside for the necessary process of un-learning what modern philosophy “taught” since Descartes, the Enlightenment and the materialists of today, could accurately be subtitled “Against the Heretics” as Feser must dismantle so many of the mistaken notions related to human thinking and behavior. Fittingly, two of his chapters begin with “Against,” when addressing some of these errors.

One of the things that impressed me in Feser’s books The Last Superstition, All One in Christ and By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed was his ability to engage so thoroughly with his opponents. Immortal Souls is no different when arguing against the objections to substances themselves or the reductions of the mind to the brain. These two positions are informed by materialist assumptions that Feser shows to be logically suspect at best using the very data that was meant to prove them. Similar to The Last Superstition specifically, which also contests the assumptions of philosophical materialism, Feser ends up beating the materialists at their own game. For example, he refers to an often-cited experiment conducted by Benjamin Libet to prove physical determinism using recorded urges to move, muscle movements and brain activity.

Though the brain activity preceded the recorded urge, the stand-in for the will, at best this would only prove the immateriality of the will, which is exactly what classical philosophers state anyway. Far from disproving free-will, Feser notes four problems related to it and that he is not alone in doing so. The most persuasive and practical of these for the casual reader would have to be the sterilized manner in which these choices were made. While a decision to flex one's wrist may be proven to be arbitrary, that ignores the fact that the action itself is utterly arbitrary. To reduce freedom to the flex of a wrist and then say an experiment has disproven it is like finding two versions of the multiplication of the loaves and claiming to disprove the Resurrection of Jesus.

Feser makes an interesting and important observation at the beginning of Part II of the book, “What is a Body?” when comparing the modern “mechanical” misunderstandings of the body to its ancient Greek atomistic counterparts. While he notes that a full discussion of the comparisons is beyond the scope of the book, one can see the value of relating these misunderstandings in defending the traditional hylomorphic view. I would have appreciated traveling down this road further, but can respect the desire to simplify considering the substantial length of the book already.

Something that stood out as helpful in Feser’s treatment of the matter, the body and hylomorphism is the ad absurdum that a purely materialist conception of reality presents. Without a non-physical concept of substance, one is faced with an infinite regress and must end at the irrational brute fact of prime matter in order to determine “what” something actually is. Feser recognizes this scenario as another iteration of Zeno’s paradox, which have already been refuted by Aristotle for not taking into account the distinction between potentiality and actuality. Even if technology continues to develop where we can divide particles seemingly infinitely, pushing this physical horizon further does not really prove anything. No matter how much further we push that horizon line, it does not negate the reliance on the premise of actuality and potentiality, which “mechanical philosophy,” according to Feser, has ignored.

An area that pleasantly surprised me in reading this book were the distinction Feser made in his treatment of the nature of life itself. This is still largely a mystery to the scientistic community and one that could use further treatment in the Aristotelian-Thomistic community as well. Here, Feser notes that acts of “immanent causation” to describe the self-movement present in a living being versus “transeunt causation, which terminates outside the agent.” While this may seem obvious through examples, Feser uses a snake’s digestion of a mouse to show immanent causation, while using a boulder rolling down a hill to show transeunt, it is useful to have non-arbitrary recognition of this difference one can refer to in conversation.

Without letting this review become too lengthy, a point should be made on Feser’s treatment of the relationship between the soul, specifically the intellect, and the development of so-called Artificial Intelligence. I wonder if Feser feels the same sense of tedium as I do by the sheer inundation of AI assumptions in the misguided attempts to compare it to the intellect. It is a necessary treatment that Feser offers because of the ubiquity, and continued expansion, of AI technology. Feser is methodical in his explanation of exactly what a computer does and how to differentiate exactly the work of the intellect. Essentially, each argument for the conflation of computation and intellection is question begging because it begins with a reduction of the mind to that of a computer from the outset. The engagement between AI and the intellect is another extension, and seemingly the last extension, of the “mechanical philosophy” that was inadvertently generated by Descartes but matured and made explicit by the Enlightenment. It is not one that will end with Feser’s treatment, as any new technology will at least re-introduce the metaphysical questions that any technology introduces, but his treatment will provide a helpful outline for when the new questions emerge.

Some miscellaneous features of the book before wrapping up should be included as well. The book is thorough in its footnotes, providing specific reference points for any reader who wants to dive even deeper into a topic presented. The index is also extensive, which will make it easy to revisit concepts for one’s better personal understanding or for later reference when seeking to apply Feser’s argument in discussion, citation or in the classroom. If I wanted to be picky I could say that the book could have used a “For Further Reading” appendix at the end, but one need only peruse the near-900 footnotes with varied sources throughout the book if one is interested in finding another source. Other than the primary sources which Feser cites, this book is about as “Further” as one’s reading on the subject of human nature gets.

The book ends with the rather staggering claim, not of the reasonability of the immortality of the soul, which is the book’s title, but of said soul’s reunion with the body. Rather, the claim would be staggering if it were not for Feser’s already established robust presentation of the hylomorphic relationship between the rational soul and the body, which at the very least provides for an argument from fittingness of its reintegration (what Christianity refers to as resurrection). It is emboldening to have a philosopher present the traditional Christian position, while also willing to push the limits of reason in doing so, with such clarity. Feser has always been clear in his first principles, but unwavering in his rational defense of those principles. Immortal Souls is no different in its ability to make distinctions and answer fundamental questions so we readers can know what makes us truly human.