Partitioning the Soul
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Edited by:
Klaus Corcilius
About this book
Does the soul have parts? What kind of parts? And how do all the parts make together a whole? Many ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers discussed these questions, thus providing a mereological analysis of the soul. Their starting point was a simple observation: we tend to describe the soul of human beings by referring to different types of activities (perceiving, imagining, thinking, etc.). Each type of activity seems to be produced by a special part of the soul. But how can a simple, undivided soul have parts? Classical thinkers gave radically different answers to this question. While some claimed that there are indeed parts, thus assigning an internal complexity to the soul, others emphasized that there can only be a plurality of functions that should not be conflated with a plurality of parts. The eleven chapters reconstruct and critically examine these answers. They make clear that the metaphysical structure of the soul was a crucial issue for ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers.
Author / Editor information
Klaus Corcilius, University of California, Berkeley, USA; Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Reviews
Lloyd Gerson in: BMCR 2016.03.12
Supplementary Materials
Topics
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Frontmatter
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Contents
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Introduction
1 -
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Plato’s Divided Soul
15 -
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Parts in Aristotle’s Definition of Soul: De Anima Books I and II
39 -
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Walking and Talking: Reflections on Divisions of the Soul in Stoicism
63 -
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Partitioning the Soul: Galen on the Anatomy of the Psychic Functions and Mental Illness
85 -
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Parts of the Soul in Plotinus
107 -
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Iamblichus, Proclus and Philoponus on Parts, Capacities and ousiai of the Soul and the Notion of Life
149 -
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Ockham on Emotions in the Divided Soul
179 -
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Virtual Presence: Psychic Mereology in Francisco Suárez
199 -
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The Faces of Simplicity in Descartes’s Soul
219 -
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Spinoza on the Unity of Will and Intellect
245 -
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The Great Chain of Souls: Leibniz on Soul Unitarism and Soul Kinds
271 -
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List of Contributors
299 -
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Index of Names
301
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