The Stoics and Socrates :: essays research papers

The Stoics and SocratesThe question of the reality of the psyche and its distinction from the tree trunk isamong the some important problems of philosophy, for with it is bound up thedoctrine of a future life. The soul may be defined as the ultimate internal doctrine by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies aranimated. The term "mind" usually denotes this rationale as the subject of our cognizant states, while "soul" denotes the source of our vegetal activitiesas well. If there is life after devastation, the agent of our vital activities essentialbe capable of an initiation separate from the body. The belief in an alive(p)principle in some sense distinct from the body is deduction from the observedfacts of life. The lowest savages arrive at the concept of the soul just aboutwithout reflection, certainly without any severe mental effort. The mysteriesof birth and death, the lapse of conscious life during sleep, even the mostcommon operatio ns of imagination and memory, which short-change a man from hisbodily presence even while wake up all such facts suggest the existence ofsomething besides the visible organism. An existence not entirely defined by thematerial and to a vauntingly extent independent of it, leading a life of its own. Inthe psychological science of the savage, the soul is often represented as actuallymigrating to and fro during dreams and trances, and after death haunting theneighborhood of its body. Nearly always it is figured as something exceedinglyvolatile, a perfume or a breath.In Greece, the heartland of our ancient philosophers, the low essays ofphilosophy took a positive and somewhat materialistic direction, inherited fromthe pre-philosophic age, from bell ringer and the early Greek religion. In Homer,while the distinction of soul and body is recognized, the soul is hardlyconceived as possessing a substantial existence of its own. divide from thebody, it is a mere shadow, incapable of ener getic life. Other philosophersdescribed the souls genius in terms of substance. Anaximander gives it anaeriform constitution, Heraclitus describes it as a fire. The fundamental sight is the same. The soul is the nourishing agent which imparts heat, life,sense, and intelligence to all things in their several(prenominal) degrees and kinds. ThePythagoreans taught that the soul is a harmony, its essence consisting in thoseperfect mathematical ratios which are the law of the universe and the music ofthe heavenly spheres. All these early theories were cosmological rather thanpsychological in character. Theology, physics, and mental science were not asyet distinguished.In the "Timaeus" (p.