Liriano's Argument: Do Persons Have Souls?

Kylee Schwartzbeck Mrs. Skrabak PHL-101-02 28 February 2024 Do Persons Have Souls? The term, “soul”, what exactly is this entity, and its purpose within ourselves–these questions have presented a long-lived debate within the world of philosophy for years upon years. This renowned question has been “answered” through a plethora of perspectives, but still, there is no definite, final answer to what those have been trying to depict. My paper will break down Liriano’s argument–people do possess souls–alongside the evidence provided as support. The argument ultimately contains issues regarding the empirical evidence undermining his claim–I will depict the false claim that the brain can give insight into one’s consciousness, the basis of his perspective
Supporting a claim with evidence that is directly personal possesses a high likelihood of presenting a biased point of view. When I say bias, I do not mean necessarily incorrect information, but more so skewed information as a result of being from solely one perspective, which is his own. He includes the perspective from Sam Parnia that religious beliefs should be exempt from involvement in arguments with the reasoning that religious views are perceived differently depending on the individual. In a sense, this causes Liriano’s argument to be questionable because personal experiences in arguments are much like religion: experiences are viewed differently from different perspectives and can imply a variety of meanings. Consequently, this represents that the basis of his argument stems from opinion and personal perspective, which is highly biased. Lastly, Liriano’s supporting evidence for people having souls, referring to the soul causing an individual to possess a sense of self and uniqueness, is immensely unpersuasive because how is one to say that the soul has this particular role when we truly have no information on what exactly a soul