In his meditation at Mass on 27 January 2017, Pope Francis spoke of “souls that shrink in order to preserve themselves”.

In Search of the Soul: A Philosophical Essay
John cCottingham
(PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 192 PP, £18.99)
Tablet bookshop price £17.09 • Tel 020 7799 4064

In his meditation at Mass on 27 January 2017, Pope Francis spoke of “souls that shrink in order to preserve themselves”. He was talking of the sin of pusillanimity and interpreted Jesus’ words in a particular way: that those who seek to preserve their life “without taking risks and always citing prudence” will lose it.

We take a risk these days even in talking of “the soul”. It is not always prudent to do so, particularly if one wishes to be taken ­seriously by philosophers. Such talk is interpreted as an embarrassing relic of a pre-scientific age. We tend to use other terms instead, like “the person” or “the self”.

Quite why the soul has dropped off the map in this way is one of the issues that John Cottingham (inset) addresses in this superb book. But his aim is more than ­theoretical: to rescue the soul from its dark night of neglect, illuminating it so that it may itself be illuminating.

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