Aristotelian and Stoic Ideas Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Aristotelian and Stoic Ideas - Thesis Example The soul, moreover, in the Stoic sense is isolated to its psychological or its mind functions, those related to mental activities, whereas there are two other lower categories of pneuma, or breath, that are related first to the formation of a cohesive and characteristic whole, as in the case of non-animate objects such as the soil and rocks, and secondly to what the Stoics refer to as the natural pneuma, which is the pneuma associated with the life force in plants. The soul is the highest pneuma, of which plants do not share, and that soul has for its functions or characteristics the categories of desire, the ability to gather impressions from the senses, and cognition and the life of the intellect, rationality, the ability to give or to hold back assent to natural impulses. The soul is the higher principle in the Stoic sense (Lorenz). From the Aristotelian perspective, on the other hand, the soul is that organizing principle that governs all of the activities and actions of all life forms, including plants. This all-encompassing view of the soul posits in essence that all kinds of activities that are to be associated with living things find their root in the activity or the essence of the soul. This is a comprehensive take on the nature of life and of the soul, in that all kinds of activities, from the very function of the individual cells, to the ability of organisms to make food from sunlight to swallowing food, to swimming or drinking or reproducing, to healing themselves, to making all kinds of noises, have for their foundation the abilities and functions that are enabled by the presence of the soul. On the other hand, because the soul is the essence of these activities, they are not to be found in the bodies that the soul inhabits.