In religion and philosophy, the soul is the immaterial aspect or essence of a living being. It is typically believed to be immortal and to exist apart from the material world. Anthropologists and psychologists have found that most humans believe in the existence of a soul or spirit, and that they have cross-culturally distinguished between the soul (or spirit) and the material body.
Different religions conceptualize souls in different ways. Buddhism generally teaches the non-existence of a permanent self (), contrasting with Christianity's belief in an eternal soul that experiences death as a transition to God's presence in heaven. Hinduism views the ('self', 'essence') as identical to Brahman in some traditions, while Islam uses two terms—rūḥ and —to distinguish between the divine spirit and a personal disposition. Jainism considers the soul () to be an eternal but changing form until liberation, while Judaism employs multiple terms such as and to refer to the soul. Sikhism regards the soul as part of God (), Shamanism often embraces soul dualism with "body souls" and "free souls", while Taoism recognizes dual soul types ( and ).
The soul has been a central area of interest in philosophy since ancient times. Socrates envisioned the soul to possess a rational faculty, its practice being man's most godlike activity. Plato believed the soul to be the person's real self, an immaterial and immortal dweller of our lives that continues and thinks even after death. Aristotle sketched out the soul as the "first actuality" of a naturally organized body—form and matter arrangement allowing natural beings to aspire to full actualization.
Medieval philosophers expanded upon these classical foundations. Ibn Sina distinguished between the soul and the spirit, arguing that the soul's immortality follows from its nature rather than serving as a purpose to fulfill. Following Aristotelian principles, Thomas Aquinas understood the soul as the first actuality of the living body but maintained that it could exist without a body since it has operations independent of corporeal organs. In modern philosophy, the three main theories that describe the relationship between the soul and the body are interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism. During the Age of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant defined the soul as the "I" in the most technical sense, holding that we can prove that "all properties and actions of the soul cannot be recognized from materiality".
Etymology The English noun soul stems from the Old English . The earliest attestations reported in the Oxford English Dictionary are from the 8th century. In the Vespasian Psalter 77.50, it means 'self', 'life' or 'animate existence'. In King Alfred's translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae, it is used to refer to the immaterial, spiritual, or thinking aspect of a person, as contrasted with the person's physical body. The Old English word is cognate with other historical Germanic terms for the same idea, including Old Frisian , (which could also mean 'salvation', or 'solemn oath'), Gothic , Old High German , , Old Saxon , and Old Norse . Present-day cognates include Dutch and German .
Religion
Buddhism
The concepts of (not-self) is fundamental to Buddhism. Early Buddhists were suspicious about the spiritual value of a soul. They wanted to clearly reject the notion of a mortal body and eternal soul dualism that Jainism posited and that lead to ascetics starving themselves to death to free the soul from the mortal prison.McClelland, N. C. (2018). Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. Ukraine: McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. p. 17. From a historical perspective, the doctrine of evolved out of two main philosophico-religious beliefs: eternalism (sassata-vada) and annihilationism (anuyoga).Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 55. The eternalists assert the eternity of the soul; ritual purity, celestial beings, heaven and hell, mortification of the body, etc.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 58. In contrast, the annihilationists deny the immortality of the soul and believe that the soul only exists as long as the body does. Since they believe that the soul dies with the body, they prescribe practising self-indulgence () in order to enjoy pleasures experienced through the senses. The Buddha rejects both views and identifies their origins to be caused by two cravings: Desire for immortality drags people to eternalism, when life is pleasurable, while unpleasant states lead to annihilation because of the craving for self-discontinuity. Buddha identifies both views as soul-theories, as both identify a self through craving.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. pp. 63–64.
The idea of an unchanging soul conflicts with the principles of dependent origination and cessation of all of the five aggregates.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 170. Due to their impermanence, they are considered "empty" or "without essence".Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 170. Through the lens of impermanence, Buddhists recognize that all phenomena—whether physical or mental—are in a continuous cycle of arising and dissolving, with nothing being permanent, including the perception of a self or soul.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 69. In Buddhism, the only absolute is Śūnyatā.Buddhist Text and Anthropological Society Journal of the Buddhist Text and Anthropological Society, Band 5, Teil 1 The Society, 1897 digitalized: 21. May 2014. p. 1. The self is a retrospective evaluation of sensual experience. This sensory experience then leads to craving and the formation of the thought "this is mine", whereby creating the notion of a self.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 169. It is this continuity of craving to a self, which gives raise to a new birth.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 303. Buddhists regard the identification of an independent soul with perception as mistaken, since our perception of the world depends on the sense organs.McClelland, N. C. (2018). Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland. pp. 16–17. In the Cetana-sutta, the flow of consciousness maintains the connection between one birth to another, and also determines the conditions of the conceptions into the mother's womb, where they forget about their previous lives.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. pp. 305–308. The mentions three modes of self-continuity: sensual self-continuity (), fine-material mode (), and immaterial self-continuity (), the latter two take place among those who practise absorption meditations () and become brahmas.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 295.
However, even this transmission of consciousness cannot be identified with a soul, for the very possibility of losing consciousness would be inexplicable. Were there a soul, Buddhists would associate it with something entirely devoid of sensibility—yet such an entity would lack any basis for being identified as "me". Another argument against an autonomous soul is that it could will itself to never die or get sick, however, death and sickness happen against the will of individuals.Gethin, R. (1998). The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press. p. 137. The final argument is that, within Buddhist thought, nothing has been identified as unchanging or permanent. Since consciousness too is impermanent, an unchanging soul cannot exist.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 302.McClelland, N. C. (2018). Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland. p. 16. Thus, every individual is a complex interplay of physical and mental phenomena, all dependent on countless conditions; once these phenomena and conditions are removed, no enduring self can be found.Gethin, R. (1998). The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press. p. 139.
Unanswerable question The Buddha left ten questions unanswered, one of which concerned the existence of a soul ("Is the soul one thing and the body another?" and "Who is it that is reborn?").Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 298.Karunadasa, Y. (2015). Early Buddhist teachings (New ed.). Simon and Schuster. p. 143. This led some people to believe that the Buddha only rejected a soul defined through one (or more) of the five aggregates (Skandha).The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Pain. Vereinigtes Königreich, Taylor & Francis, 2017. p. 294.McClelland, Norman C. Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. Ukraine, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2018. p. 18.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. p. 168. Another interpretation holds that he remained silent, because the Buddha considered the question irrelevant to the pursuit of enlightenment. Whether he knew the answer remains a matter of debate.Karunadasa, Y. (2018). Early Buddhist teachings (New ed.). Simon and Schuster. pp. 153–154. Yet another view argues that the Buddha remained silent, because the question itself is invalid.
Those who argue that the Buddha affirmed a self, independent from body and mind, as proposed by the eternalists or annihilists, argue that the soul is something transcending the five aggregates.Gowans, C. (2004). Philosophy of the Buddha: An introduction. Routledge. pp. 56; 67–68. Some Buddhists of the Mahayana tradition believe that the soul is not absolute, but immortal; the soul cannot die, although influenced by karma, since the soul is unborn and unconditioned.Buddhist Text and Anthropological Society. Journal of the Buddhist Text and Anthropological Society, Band 5, Teil 1. The Society, 1897, digitalized: 21 May 2014. p. 1. In support for that view, Christopher Gowan points at Buddhist texts possibly implying some sort of self, such as references to personal pronouns,Gowans, Christopher. Philosophy of the Buddha: An introduction. Routledge, 2004. p. 68. and the need for a self who suffers in order to aim for release in nirvana. Due to the implicit references in the Buddhist doctrines, Gowan also rejects the view that they are merely conventions of speech, rather the best way to understand Buddha's teachings coherently would be to distinguish between a substantial self and an ever changing self beyond the five aggregates.Gowans, Christopher. Philosophy of the Buddha: An introduction. Routledge, 2004. pp. 72–73. The Buddha would have rejected the former, but implicitly affirmed the latter.
In contrast, others hold that the Buddha remained silent on this matter, because they are invalid questions. When asked such a question ("Who is reborn?") the existence of a self is presupposed. However, if souls do not exist, no one can be reborn in the first place, and thus, there is no accurate answer to the question. This view also disapproves of later responses within traditional Buddhist schools, such as Theravada, who answered the question on identity in paradoxical terms, yet whereby implicitly affirming some sort of self or soul.Somaratne, G. A. The Buddha's Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis. Singapur, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021. pp. 298–299.
Two Truths