UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST A HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE SOUL IN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY UP TO THE 20TH CENTURY BY

The problem of the soul and its content(s) is among the most important problems of philosophy. Various theories as to what the term soul designates have claimed to be reconcilable with the tenets of such philosophical concepts as materialism, idealism, dualism, naturalism, etc. One of the definitions of the soul is that the soul is the ultimate internal principle by which one thinks, feels, and wills, and by which the body is animated. The term "mind " usually denotes this principle as the subject of conscious states, while "soul " denotes the source of vegetative activities as well. That a person’s vital activities proceed from a principle capable of subsisting in itself, is the thesis of the substantiality of the soul: that this principle is not itself composite, extended, corporeal, or essentially and intrinsically dependent on the body, is the doctrine of immaterialism. The assertion of an independent principle (in some sense distinct from the body) is highly acclaimed in substance dualism. Substance dualists mostly believe that the mysteries of birth and death, th