Reconciling Arguments about the Self-Preserving Soul with Evolutionary Theory

Advocates of a self-preserving soul must somehow integrate that soul with an organic body which is the product of an evolutionary history. Efforts to resolve this version of the sorites paradox (at what point in the gradual evolution of Homo sapiens was the step taken from the soul-less to the ensouled?) can result in conflict between the two theories. The position is taken here that, given the standard of Popperian verisimilitude, any such conflict signals a weakness in the soul-theory, and not in evolutionism.

Five soul-theories (those by Plato, Aristotle, William of Auvergne, Hume, and Heidegger) are evaluated on three criteria. First, is the soultheory internally consistent, but within itself and relative to the larger corpus of that author? Second, is the kind of soul depicted by that theory one which the ordinary person would recognize as his or her “self”? And third, is the soul-theory compatible with evolutionism? The standard for evolutionary compatibility is whether the theory allows for psychological continuity across species.

No theory successfully addresses all three criteria. Of the five, Hume’s theory seems most promising. Had the evolutionary standard not been included, the better choice would have been Heidegger’s. This fact demonstrates that evolutionary considerations do have philosophical consequences.