Aristotle did not invent the concept of the soul. John Vespasian explains that the concept was already existing in older cultures such as those of ancient Egyptians and Hinduism. In those cultures, people believed that the soul was the animating energy or force behind life, also including human life. For the ancient Egyptians and Hindus, the sole involved ideas of immortality, reincarnation, and the soul’s journey after death. Ancient Egyptians practised mummification of corpses to safeguard their soul in the afterlife. The mummy was meant to give the soul a physical place of residence, so to speak. In ancient Greece, a century before Aristotle, Pythagoras put forward that the soul was immortal and could migrate from one body to another. In this regard, Pythagoras was imitating the philosophy of Hinduism. Aristotle devoted a full book to the concept of the soul. The Latin title of this work is “De Anima,” which means “About the Soul). Aristotle wrote this book when he was still a student of Plato’s or shortly after leaving Plato’s school. Historians do not know the exact date of the writing, but it is clearly influenced by Plato’s theories. Aristotle had not yet developed his own philosophical system, or at least, not fully. In this book, Aristotle divides the soul in three types or parts, namely, the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul. Let us see what each type means. He devotes one part of “De Anima” to each type of soul. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/aristotles-theory-of-the-soul/

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