Abstract
Greek theories of life clustered around the psyche. Usually translated as “soul,” it can also be thought of as a principle of life. The oldest usage comes from Homer, speaking of human life at its limits. Presocratic philosophers used the soul to make sense of the motion of living things, which is more complex than the motion of elements. They proposed both material and immaterial souls and debated whether one soul was enough to explain living things, or if multiple souls were needed. This chapter follows the earliest uses of the term psyche as it comes to be associated with biological motion and contrasted with the motion of elements.
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There is one reference to the psyche leaving a pig as it dies (Odyssey 14.426: τὸν δ’ ἔλιπε ψυχή). Fagles renders this as “it gasped out its life….”
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The word thumos has a connotation of physical breath, though it already captured some idea of life-breath and livingness by the time of Homer .
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Cited by Aristotle in De Anima 405a19–21.
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Planets travel through the sky on a different path than the stars , making them celestial agents. The word “planet” comes from the Greek word for “wanderer” because these objects wander from the perfect circular path of the regular stars.
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Aristotle De Anima 406a12–14.
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Aristotle , De Anima 405b2–7; Metaphysics 983b20.
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Mix, L.J. (2018). Greek Life: Psyche and Early Life-Concepts. In: Life Concepts from Aristotle to Darwin. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96047-0_2
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