Jan Bremmer presents a provocative picture of the historical development of beliefs regarding the soul in ancient Greece. He argues that before Homer the Greeks distinguished between two types of soul, both identified with the individual: the free soul, which possessed no psychological attributes and was active only outside the body, as in dreams, swoons, and the afterlife; and the body soul, which endowed a person with life and consciousness. Gradually this concept of two kinds of souls was replaced by the idea of a single soul. In exploring Greek ideas of human souls as well as those of plants and animals, Bremmer illuminates an important stage in the genesis of the Greek mind.
- ISBN10 0691031312
- ISBN13 9780691031316
- Publish Date 21 April 1983
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 19 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Princeton University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 166
- Language English
- URL https://press.princeton.edu/titles/182.html