Concept in Definition ABC

The concept of soul, although over the years it has evolved and acquired new formulations that do not propose it or use it as it was done in the antiquity to oppose it fiercely to the concept of the body and in this way to be able to stigmatize the latter more and more, it has always been related or It has been used to refer to the inner, spiritual part that each human being has, where the instincts, the feelings and the emotions Men's and that it has nothing to do with the body that can be seen and touched. By this situation is that the soul, anima or psyche, as it is also known, supposes an immaterial and invisible principle, which is housed in the interior of the body and that addresses all those issues that require a deeper commitment on the part of the person. Many philosophers of different cultures and creeds in turn distinguish the soul from the spirit, pointing out the most transcendent aspects in the first and the understanding in the second. Thus, according to this conception, human beings would be individuals with 3 facets or components (bodies, soul, spirit or understanding), while animals would only have body and spirit and plant beings with their structure bodily.

Also as a consequence of this immateriality to which it is "condemned", the soul becomes impossible for its existence to be verified through any investigation or objective scientific evidence or for the methodology rational knowledge.

Meanwhile, and returning to the theme of the stigmatization that was given to the concept of body, we find it in what was the dual conception that, in this regard, the philosopher Plato proposed in his legacy that was later taken up by some philosophers linked to sectors of Christianity (in the beginning) and Islam (in a second term), who argued that the body was something like "the prison of the soul "to which it had arrived as a result of the commission of some crime and for this reason they could no longer see the eternal essences, but only remember them (allegory of the cavern). On the other hand, the philosophy Platonic proposed a constant confrontation of the soul with the human body, which was always reduced to evil and condemned to contempt. These concepts of a Socratic nature still persist in some modern philosophies.

Also and more than anything today, the term is widely used by religion, by religious, for example, priests, who repeatedly speak about the need to purify certain souls of some men who have been contaminated by the sin.
With this sense that religion gives in these times, the soul ends up being something like the consciousness of people, which by certain Misdirected circumstances, actions or thoughts are stained or spoiled, with religion having the job of healing it through faith, commitment and prayer. It is interesting to note that, despite the intangibility and the impossibility of proving its existence from the point of view of the experience rational, all the cultures of the planet in their different historical moments recognize the soul as a real component of the human being and They conceive their separation from the body from the moment of death or in experiences of an esoteric nature, such as so-called trips astral. Even some ancient and modern religions propose the abandonment of the body by the soul upon death, with subsequent return to a new body, not necessarily human, according to those who believe in the reincarnation. On the other hand, in monotheistic religions, it is admitted that the departure of the soul at the time of death leads it to a space for joy eternal (Heaven or Paradise), the final condemnation (hell) or a later state of purification (the Purgatory of the doctrine Catholic). It is added that some of these creeds, such as the Catholicism, the Anglicanism and Judaism, also conceive the reunification of the soul and the body towards the end of time, generally called the resurrection of the dead.