Heat, Pneuma, and Soul in Ancient Philosophy and Science

The first volume to examine theories of soul in Greek philosophy using an approach drawn from the history of science.

Hynek Bartoš (Edited by), Colin Guthrie King (Edited by)

9781108701396, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 April 2023

390 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.565 kg

'Ultimately, the volume makes a ?ne case for a collection of essays examining heat, pneuma, and soul through Aristotle, and it ably advances the scholarly discussion on them.' Rhodes Pinto, Stanford University

The conceptualization of the vital force of living beings as a kind of breath and heat is at least as old as Homer. The assumptions that life and living things were somehow causally related to 'heat' and 'breath' (pneuma) would go on to inform much of ancient medicine and philosophy. This is the first volume to consider the relationship of the notions of heat, breath (pneuma), and soul in ancient Greek philosophy and science from the Presocratics to Aristotle. Bringing together specialists both on early Greek philosophy and on Aristotle, it brings an approach drawn from the history of science to the study of both fields. The chapters give fresh and detailed interpretations of the theory of soul in Heraclitus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Diogenes of Appolonia, and Democritus, as well as in the Hippocratic Corpus, Plato's Timaeus, and various works of Aristotle.

Introduction. Ancient philosophy and science at the crossroads of metaphysics and medicine Colin Guthrie King
Heat, pneuma and soul in the medical tradition Hynek Bartoš
Part I. Early Greek Philosophy and Medicine: 1. Fire, heat and motive force in early Greek philosophy and medicine Gábor Betegh
2. Parmenides on the soul Shaul Tor
3. The spirit in the flesh: Empedocles on embodied soul Simon Trépanier
4. Out of thin air? Diogenes on causal explanation Bryan C. Reece
5. Soul, life and nutrition in the Timaeus Thomas K. Johansen
6. De spiritu on heat and its roles in the formation, composition and activities of animals Orly Lewis
Part II. Aristotle: 7. Heat, meteorology and spontaneous generation Malcolm Wilson
8. Aristotle on 'the nature in the pneuma' and the first body Karel Thein
9. Aristotle on the powers of thermic equilibrium Tiberiu Popa
10. Why animals must keep their cool: Aristotle on the need for respiration (and other forms of cooling) James G. Lennox
11. Soul's tools Jessica Gelber
12. When life imitates art: vital locomotion and Aristotle's craft analogy Patricio Fernandez and Jorgé Mittelmann
13. Blood, ??????, or something more solid? Aristotle on the material structure of perceptual apparatus Robert Roreitner
14. The pathological role of pneuma in Aristotle Patrick Macfarlane.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Philosophy of science [PDA], Philosophy [HP], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]