Final answer:
The soul does not interact with the body in the way a sailor pilots a ship, because it is an intrinsic part of the body's life force according to philosophers such as Aristotle and Aquinas, unlike a sailor who operates a ship as an external agent.
Step-by-step explanation:
We would say that the soul does not just move a body like a sailor pilots a ship because the relationship between mind and body is more intrinsic and intertwined than that of a sailor to a ship. The sailor acts upon the ship as an external force, whereas the soul permeates the body and is its principle of life, as described by philosophers such as Aristotle. According to him and following the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas, the soul is the first principle of life, manifesting through functions such as growth, perception, and reason. This perspective is influenced by a philosophical understanding that the soul and body are not separate entities operating independently but are unified in essence. Contrastingly, inanimate physical objects like ships do not possess any life force or principle of movement within them and are therefore completely reliant on external forces for motion.
Aristotle's functional conception of the soul differs from Plato's view of the soul as an eternal substance, instead defining the soul based upon its activities. This notion affirms that the body is animated and in a very real sense enlivened by the soul's capacities. Moreover, the question of the soul's materiality, as discussed in the work 'Freaky Friday,' is illustrated by the argument that a non-physical entity cannot affect physical matter directly, thus indicating that the soul's interaction with the body is fundamentally different from a sailor's interaction with a ship.