Atomism

Yes. Let me a crude quick attempt at it..."Soul" resides in the uniqueness of your information set in context with the specific world circumstances around you, which is another information set. Both mingle in a dynamic duet. The spirit, (spirare=breathing) the anima, the momentum in you, WITH the world is your ghost in the Machina !

The application of the term 'atomism, varies with the discipline, does it not?
When you consider the word 'soul', it is a good idea to visit the words translated as 'soul' in the various ancient works. My knowledge is limited to the Hebrew 'nephesh' and Greek 'psyche'. The Hebrew word clearly relates to 'breath'; and souls may be referred to as 'breathers'. One does not have a soul, one is a soul.(That is why Bible translators referred to animals as 'souls'). Also, it is clear to many Bible scholars, that the Greek 'psyche' is equivalent to the Hebrew 'nephesh'.

Starting from that point of view, the word 'soul' would be a holistic concept, including all the atomistic properties of one's self.

My own POV, of course. I have been wrong before. Last November, I think.

I know no old languages but I am a Latin speaker (Portuguese) so here is my connectors:

Spirit=Spirare=Respirare=Respiration=Breathing

I think Im going to drop this class tomorrow my head hurts and its so confusing thank you for responding.

I've never seen a full account of the soul by anybody. Nor any credible evidence that there is such a thing. One thing a good Philosophy class/prof should do is make you question your assumptions. You seem to assume souls exist. Can you give a full accounting of this assumption?

I would think a basic philosophy course would have as its main goal to encourage you to think. You have here an opportunity to express your ideas. And it's OK to be wrong, so long as you are reasonable.

To tell the truth, most of what I have seen spewed by 'philosophers' is chicken crap disguised as chicken salad. From a distance, it's hard to tell. But look closely (maybe a cautious sniff?) before spreading it on your sandwich.

See Epicurus, and figure it out for yourself.

It's just circular reasoning. The assume the soul exists and suggest atomism is therefore necessary and since they think it is necessary it validates the existence of a soul.

Let's face it, this line of reasoning mostly, if not all, comes directly out of christian thought. Christianity has one objective, to make you feel bad about existing. It needs to demonize you and make you feel guilty for your life. If you don't feel this way then their theology doesn't make any sense.

This is where the atomism arises. Although the concept does exist in other cultures and religions prior to christianity, it is based purely on the thought that you exist after you die. The ancient egyptian religion had a very similar idea of existing after the death of your body.

The greeks and romans both believed that you exist after you die. Certain gods will snatch you up and claim your soul. Weather it's Hades or Zeus.

The problem is that anything that is immaterial is very difficult to varify and even less so if it in no way impacts the material. Thought itself is difficult to dissect because of this fact.

i apologize for the previous response, that was pretty rude. If you haven't already dropped the class, here is my guess re: your question:

In Classical Greek, and in later Hellenistic philosophy, it was routine to make speculations about the fundamental "substance" of the universe/reality, and it was based upon that speculation that many philosophies developed metaphysics (what's happening behind/within what we observe) and a corresponding ethics (how we should behave in accordance with the universe, including [and perhaps privileging] that which we can know but not sense.)

Epicurus, the most successful of the ancient atomists (although not the first, Democritus precedes him), was, as one might assume, a materialist. He believed that all of reality consisted of a simple nondescript substance, that existed in a variety of microscopic shapes, separated by an empty void, falling and swerving so as to link together in a variety of ways.

The concept of the soul preceded Epicurus, and was an extremely important concept to his predecessors, and frankly, was such a culturally cemented idea that it could not be dismissed. So he was not only required to explain it within his own system, he could not have imagined not finding an explanation. And although his explanation seems absurd to us "moderns", it is because the (frankly vague) concept of "soul" familiar to us has since been defined and redefined for us many times over by later traditions that were opposed or alien to the Epicurean POV.

"Soul" was a concept that described or alluded to human motivation, decision making, perception, experience, etc. -- the way life was lived by the one living.

In trying to explain the soul, Epicurus had to do some real theoretical gymnastics. As an atomist he was beholden to the idea that all of reality consisted of discrete atoms and empty void, and he had to contend with the evidence that the pattern of human behavior was more complicated than persons' similarities in form.

So he developed the idea that "soul" consisted of incredibly smooth atoms that were trapped in the forms created by other well suited, interlocked, atom-constructed bodies. They bounced around, micro-beings with zero viscosity necessitating movement, and thus animated our bodies from within, and likewise interacted with a nature that was otherwise determined by arbitrarye atomic constructs and chance in the void.

It's false to say that souls are not material by definition--it depends on the definition...