Finch (W:140-142) – corpo e alma

Closely connected with the question of identity, though of a different kind, is another metaphysical question which, because of its “scientific” or pseudo-scientific form, has become the principal philosophic question of our time, the so-called mind-body problem. This involves the clash of two pictures, which seem equally vivid and real but cannot be fitted together: one is the picture of the human brain with its billions of neural cells and nerve connections, appearing as a greyish mass the size of a soccer ball; the other is a picture of an equally vast assemblage of images, memories, sensations, ideas, thoughts and feelings, which we believe are somehow related to this physical organ. When we are able to map the brain and locate areas and centers particularly related to these various mental activities, the situation is no better since the complete discordance between what still appear to be two entirely different kinds of “realities” remains. What could possibly connect an experienced sensation of red, for example, with a chemical or electrical discharge down a neural pathway? This is the so-called problem—between mentalist and physicalist facts. Or are there two sets of “facts” here, or are we being misled by that word?

This entire “problem” will have to appear in a new light before we can even begin to imagine what is wrong with it, how our words and our pictures have seduced us into a phantomlike difficulty. A transformation of both the images and the “relation” between them will have to take place to disentangle the difficulty. It is no accident that the metaphysical and epistemological crisis should come to a head right here, in the question of the image of the human being. How will this transformation come about?

First, Wittgenstein   prefers the word soul (Seele) to the word mind (Gemüt or Geist). It is easier to unite body and soul than body and mind since we tend to think of mind as “in the head” and soul as “spread throughout the body.” Locating the soul, people are likely to point to the heart or the chest, the traditional seat of thought, for example, in the Hebrew language. In one text Wittgenstein mentions Luther saying that “faith” was located “just below the left nipple.” Other religions, such as Hinduism, locate it slightly to the right of the heart.

The significance of this change to body and soul may be somewhat obscured by the decision of Wittgenstein’s official English translator, Elizabeth Anscombe, to translate, wrongly, I am told by German speakers, Seele (soul) as mind in more than fifteen cases. (In the bilingual edition where the German is on the facing pages, this can be corrected by consulting the German, but not in the all-English editions.) In any case, we should not miss the point that a first small step in dealing with the body-mind problem is to see a human being again, as the ancient and medieval worlds did, in terms of body-soul rather than body-mind.

We must, of course, deal with the question of whether thinking, imagining, perceiving, etc., takes place “in the head” or “in the whole body.” We do not say, “My brain sees” or “My brain thinks,” but “I see” and “I think”. I is a word that stands not for soul, but for ego or self. It may be helpful to distinguish between ego and self, the former being the self-image at the center of the latter. Some introduce the term “person” to stand for the whole of the human being, though this may lead to confusion with personality and also make it difficult to draw the important distinction between personal and impersonal.

How are we to conceive of the body-soul unity? This dictum gives us the best clue:

The human body is the best picture of the human soul. (PI 178)

The body is the visible expression or manifestation (Wittgenstein says in one place gesture) of the soul. This is a key formulation ramifying in many directions. It even requires that we learn to look differently, to look at the human body in a different way. (Note that Wittgenstein says body, not face or eyes. The face is an epitomization of the body, as the eyes are of the face, but it is the whole body that is the primary manifestation.)

In this physiognomic conception of the human being as the one body-soul, it looks as if we actually see the soul in the expressiveness of the body. It almost seems as if Wittgenstein has reversed the ancient Aristotelean view that the soul is the form of the body, turning it into the Goethean formula that the body is the visible expression of the soul. When we look at people in a deep enough way we actually see them as ensouled. Their postures, their walks, their expressions and gestures, their voices, clothes, etc. Sometimes in an unexpected moment, when we look deeply, or as someone passes in front of us, we may get a total sense of that person from all these bodily clues.