The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
"Psychē" in Homer first means life and later means a departed life or ghost. The first identification with soul in the sense of the conscious self is found perhaps in Ionia, and the earliest full identification with the rational as well as with the emotional side of personality has been attributed to Socrates. In all this there was no opposition between soul and body. The doctrine that the soul is a prisoner in the body that Plato took from Orphic doctrine had reached Greece, perhaps from Scythia, before the time of Pythagoras, probably in association with a doctrine of transmigration. Plato, in the Phaedo, while recognizing that most people do not believe in survival after death (80D), propounded a view that combines the Socratic and Orphic attitudes. In the tripartite soul of the Republic, however, it is the rational part alone that is immortal; this was also Aristotle's view.
The majority of the pre-Socratics regarded the universe as a quasi-living organism, and this view also found expression in Plato's doctrine in the Timaeus of a world soul as a source of orderly motion in the universe. Aristotle presented a developed human and animal psychology in his analysis of the soul in the De Anima and elsewhere. Whereas Plato regarded the soul as a substance separate from the body, Aristotle's final view treated it as the form of a living body. For the Stoics the soul is an aspect of the all-pervading cosmic logos, while for the Epicureans it is a combination of especially smooth atoms. Within Christian theology Augustinians follow an essentially Platonist view, while Thomists prefer Aristotle's approach.
Aristotle; Augustinianism; Epicureanism and the Epicurean School; Homer; Orphism; Plato; Platonism and the Platonic Tradition; Pre-Socratic Philosophy; Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism; Socrates; Stoicism; Thomism.
Burnet, J. "The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul." Proceedings of the British Academy 7 (1915–1916): 235–259.
Rohde, E. Psyche. Translated by W. B. Hillis. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1925.