Soul and Body in Stoicism
1982; Brill; Volume: 27; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1163/156852882x00032
ISSN1568-5284
Autores Tópico(s)Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
ResumoWhat a modern philosopher might call problems of the self and problems of personal identity take the form, in Greek philosophy, of questions about the human ivXy and its relation to the body. In this paper I propose to explore some of the ways in which the early Stoics approached such questions. The scholarly literature has not neglected the Stoic concept of 4vx , but most of the discussions have focussed upon detailed questions concerning the soul itself rather than its relationship to the body.2 My procedure here will be designed primarily to illuminate that relationship. So, in the second part of the paper, I will discuss the Stoic concept of 'unified bodies'; I will then bring 4vxA more fully into the argument by considering the nature of animal bodies and psychic functions; and finally I will make some brief remarks about 'rational souls' and their relation to (their) bodies. For reasons that should become clear it is peculiarly difficult to characterise the Stoic posi.tion on the relationship between soul and body. But it may be helpful, as an introduction, to make some comparisons with the principal rival accounts that we have from antiquity, the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Epicurean. If one were to draw up a table or questionnaire and consider the similarities and differences among these four positions, the two extremes would be represented by Plato on one side and Epicurus on the other. Broadly speaking, one may call Plato a dualist and Epicurus a materialist. Plato and Epicurus are diametrically opposed on the question of the soul's relation to the body. Thus (1), Plato allows that Socrates, or Socrates' soul, can exist without the body that Socrates now happens to have. But Epicurus maintains (2): Socrates, or Socrates' soul, cannot exist independently of just that body which is Socrates' body. (3) According to Plato, Socrates, or Socrates' soul, is an incorporeal substance which can exist independently of any body. (4) Epicurus holds on the other hand that Socrates is an arrangement of indivisible bodies (atoms), some of which constitute his flesh, blood, and bones, while others account for the vital powers of the body constituted by that flesh, blood, and bones. (5) For Plato, Socrates, or Socrates' soul, is immortal. (6) But in the view of
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