Throughout Ancient Greece, many philosophers discussed the meaning of the human soul, better known by their Greek term “psyche.” Several meanings can be mutual and agreeable albeit with different perspectives; not every answer for the meaning of the human soul is the same. In fact, there are a few works written by Greek philosophers: Plato’s Apology, published in 390 BC; Gorgias of Leontini’s Encomium of Helen, published in 427 BC; and Pindar’s Olympian Ode 2, published in 476 BC. These aforementioned works focused on the main theory of what the psyche is, what it’s meant to do for us and why it’s imperative for us, humans.
In Apology, Plato was recording the trial of Socrates, a Greek philosopher who was charged and accused of teaching non-religious lectures to his students and corrupting the young. Before the end of the trial and his execution in 399 BC, Socrates discussed the theory of the psyche. “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively. (Ap. 30b)” “…a citizen of the greatest city [Athens] with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul? (Ap. 29e)” For Socrates, according to these two quotes, the nature of the psyche is to learn to be rational and to follow their virtues; it’s their improvement that leads to excellence. Generally, every individual have the choice to become rational citizens; if they are wise, good and virtuous and remained persistent with their own improvement, they may receive good karma. One of their [benevolent] consequences is being “sent to the blessed islands,” also known as heaven, which leads to the next part of the human soul’s nature: death. In near end of the trial, Socrates mentioned the debatable meaning of death. “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest blessings for a man, yet man fear it as if they knew that it is greatest of evils (Ap. 29b).” “…that there is a good hope that death is a blessing for it is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocating for the soul from here to another place (Ap. 40d).” One possible definition of death is eternal sleep with no perception. The second, perhaps the most agreeable, is that the human soul separates itself from the body. For the function of the soul,. one can assume that it is immortal and it provides life to a mortal human body. When a human dies, the soul, its properties being invisible and immortal, leaves the body and relocates, allegedly to be reincarnated.
Gorgias of Leontini also has a different perspective of the concept of psyche in his own work, Encomium of Helen. “…the soul experiences a peculiar feeling, on account of the words, at the good and bad fortunes of other people’s affairs and bodies (En. H. Para. 9).” To Gorgias, the nature of the soul is empathy; its function is to understand other individuals’ emotions; and its capabilities are experiencing (feeling) and communicating. “By means of words… the incantation’s power, communicating with the soul’s opinion, enchants and persuades and changes it [soul], by trickery. Two distinct methods of trickery and magic are to be found: errors of soul, and deceptions of opinion (En. H. Para. 10).” Another nature is that every human soul is prone to be wronged and fooled, as said by Gorgias. The body interacts with the soul when discourse and visual and auditory senses are perceived to the soul; most discourse, opinions more specifically, are not correct albeit humans have the incorrigible habit of listening and seeing them, whereas they assume it’s accurate to their minds. The capability of this is receiving transmissions. Other capabilities of the human soul, according to Gorgias, are choosing to resist or not resist any sort of persuasion and interpreting what discourse is correct or incorrect.
Lastly, according to his poem Olympian Ode 2, Pindar believed that the nature of the human soul is learning to free the soul from performing any sorts of atrociousness and delinquency: “Those who in life took pleasure in keeping oaths / pass their time without tears in the company of the revered gods, / while the wicked endure a punishment too dreadful to behold / But those with the courage to have lived three times in either place / keeping their hearts entirely free from wrongdoing (Oly. lines 65-69).” Pindar theorized that it’s natural for the human soul to avert the body from any negative behavior and activities. He’s convincing that the properties of the psyche depend on the mortal human’s behavior and the karma one would receive after they die. If the soul is positive, kind, honest and knows how to, in Pindar’s words, “keep his oaths” (chooses the habit of averting from any crime), that individual will go to the heavens. If the soul is negative, atrocious, malevolent and refuses to “keep his oaths,” then that man is forbidden to be sent to the “blessed islands” (Pindar’s version of heavens);Â instead, the malicious ones will be punished for what he has done. To Pindar, the function of the psyche knows what’s right and wrong and its capability is choosing to resist deviant performances.
Overall, Plato’s Apology discusses the main nature of the human soul is that improvement seeks excellence and death is when the immortal soul separates itself from the mortal’s body. Gorgias of Leontini’s Encomium of Helen theorizes that the psyche’s nature is empathy and knowing its erroneous words and actions. Pindar’s Olympian Ode 2 is said that the natural concept of the soul is to know its karma when choosing to be kind or malicious. There are no known accurate definitions for the human soul albeit one can imply that there are numerous ideas of what it really is and what it’s meant to do.
-Written by Nicole Cheng, 2015
Special thanks to Professor Rex Mixon, St. Francis College