7 LEARNING ABOUT SOUL

The first doctrine of the soul was animism (from the Latin. Anima - "soul"), which included the idea of ​​the soul as a kind of ghost that leaves the human body with the last breath.

The soul, according to Plato, is the cause of changes and all kinds of movement of things, it can "move itself." The soul can control everything that is in heaven, on the sea and on earth, with the help of its own movements, which Plato called desire, discretion, and care. The soul, as he believed, is primary, and the material bodies are secondary. Comparing the problem of the spiritual and the material, Plato concludes that the soul is divine. Plato introduces the concept of the demiurge - the builder of the world. The demiurge creates the world out of ideas and non-being. Ideas act as original models of material things. Ideas are very important for the soul. Mixing ideas and matter, the demiurge creates a world soul.

Aristotle makes certain adjustments to the doctrine of the soul of Plato. He considers the soul to be the beginning of life, emphasizes the typology of the soul, and also believes that there are vegetable, animal, and rational souls. The lowest soul is the vegetable. It is responsible for the functions of growth, nutrition and reproduction, these functions are common to all living beings. In addition to the listed functions, the animal soul has a feeling and the ability to desire, that is, to strive for pleasant things and avoid unpleasant ones. Man is endowed with a rational soul, which only he can possess. The human soul is endowed with the highest of abilities, that is, the capacity for reasoning and thinking. But the mind itself, according to Aristotle, does not always depend on the body. Only the mind can grasp the eternal being and be free from matter, being eternal and unchanging. Aristotle calls this higher mind active and creative, distinguishing it from the passive mind, which can only perceive. Aristotle tried to solve the difficulties that Plato had in connection with his teaching on the three souls, which suggested explaining the possibility of the existence of any soul that is immortal, and he came to the conclusion that in a person his mind can be immortal, which merges with the mind of the universe after death .

According to the Pythagoreans, the human soul has a divine nature, is immortal, moves into other bodies, including the bodies of plants and animals. Manages the relocations of the fateful cosmic law of justice of retribution for the deeds of former earthly life. The body of the Pythagoreans consider the grave of the soul.

Heraclitus believed that the soul is a divine primordum, which by its laws turns into its opposite, that is, into water, which in turn is the beginning of mortal life. The introduction of the divine soul into the body leads to the death of its divinity, the death of the human body can be equated to the rebirth of the soul (God).