Aristotle discusses the nature of soul in De Anima, defining it as the "form of a natural body having life potentially" or "first actuality of a natural, instrumental body." I argue that these definitions characterize soul as the capacity for the activity of life. In chapter one I examine key terminology from Aristotle’s account of soul: the terms used to discuss soul, life, and the vital functions. In particular, the soul and life terminology must be kept separate, as must the terms referring to vital capacities and those referring to vital activities. In chapter two I use these terminological distinctions to trace Aristotle’s arguments for his definition of soul, contending that they begin by positing life as the vital activities and soul as the cause of life. From that beginning, Aristotle twice argues for a definition of soul, in De Anima 2.1 and 2.2. In the transition between the two arguments Aristotle says that the first is sketched in outline and that a proper definition shows the cause. While this is usually taken to mean that Aristotle prefers the second definition, I argue that the definitions reached are the same. In chapter three I argue that Aristotle’s definitions of soul state that it is the capacity for life. He defines it as a first actuality, and upon examination this phrase means that it is a capacity. He also defines it as a form and calls form an actuality, but I explain that due to the relativity of actuality and potentiality, it is permissible to view form as a capacity as well. In chapter four I reconcile the general account of soul as a capacity with Aristotle’s discussions of a particular kind of soul, examining what he says in De Anima and his biological works about the most fundamental kind—the nutritive. Aristotle locates nutritive soul in the heart and says that it is responsible for the size of an organism, but this fits with nutritive soul also being the capacity of an organism to nourish itself. I also discuss why Aristotle says the body is the instrument of soul.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / Plato’s interlocutors discuss at length about psychology, politics, poetry, cosmology, education, nature, and the gods, in short, about the things that inscribe the transcendent and the grounding poles of human life. It stands to reason that what we wish to glean from Plato’s thinking will show itself more readily if we remain attentive to the self-undermining and the subversive elements of the dialogues. I call the interpretation, which follows the shape- and, hence, meaning-shifting structure of Plato’s writing, “paradigmatic procedure.” By this I do not mean that we ought to find, explain, and then interpretively apply to the whole of Plato’s thought any particular passages from the Republic, the Timaeus, or the Statesman, which mention paradigms. However, I, following Benardete, propose that “Plato must have learned from poets” who produced epos, tragedy, comedy, and myth. This means that Plato borrows these poetic elements and form when he writes the philosophical dialogues. Paradigmatic method of interpretation is conscious of the dramatic form. It situates and analyzes the arguments made both through speeches and through actions as these arise out of the play of literary images. The latter, in their turn, are made up of the tripartite convergence between the dialogical characters, their speeches, and their deeds. Depending on the colorations that the three impart to one another, the images of Plato are comic, tragic, or, which is most often the case, they are tragicomic. The dramatic tone of a given image, once it is detected, reflects back onto the dialogical discussion or account and presents the argument in this newly discovered light. It often happens that the difference between the initial and the paradigmatic reading is so drastic that the straightforward meaning of the studied passage is undone as Plato’s writing begins to show its self-undermining nature. This does not mean that Plato’s philosophizing, also, is undone. On the contrary, when we begin to think together with and through Plato’s subversive writing, instead of retrofitting our lives to some systems that may arise out of it and instead of forcing it to substantiate our views, then we begin to get a sense for the liberating force of Plato’s philosophy. In chapter one, I explain the relationship between paradigms and the tragicomic character of Plato’s writing. Consequently, I offer a reading of select passages from the Timaeus and from the Republic. My discoveries showcase how paradigms inform and how the paradigmatic reading uncovers the tragic dimension of the Timaeus. I show how comedy shines through the, seemingly, most serious passages in the Republic. Plato’s dialogues do not strictly divide into the tragic, comic, epic, mythic, sophistic, or pre-Socratic ones, but rather, most are woven out of all of these orientations. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that within parts or passages, such as those from the Republic, for example, a given form and theme is most pronounced. I turn to the examination of tragedy in the second chapter. There, I first argue that Sophocles’ Oedipus is a tyrant and then I expose the relationship between the psychopathology of tyranny, tragedy, and poetry in books VIII and IX of the Republic. The third chapter carries on the exploration of pathology and offers an examination of tyranny and the soul in the Timaeus. Paradigmatic analysis plays up the theatricality of the Timaeus and identifies several axes around which the dialogical accounts revolve. The three main horizons are made up of nous, necessity, and dream or choric logic. These are fleshed out by the distention given to the dialogical arguments through the enmeshment of φύσις, μῦθος, and πόλις. The fourth kind of emphasis, senselessness, ushers the dialogue’s grotesquely humorous ending and prepares the readers for the considerations of comedy in the fourth chapter of the present work. The comedy of divisions, mythic tall tales, the halving and the fitting cuts, with which Plato’s Statesman is woven through and through, reveal statesmanship’s sinister underbelly. If it were not for the comedic tone, the fourth chapter argues, the monstrousness of tyranny, which is interred in all of the paradigms entertained as models of rule in the Statesman, would have remained unseen. Attunement to the comical passages and references, in the Statesman, is made expedient by an analysis of tyranny in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. The fifth and final chapter sees to the convergence of the speciously opposite forms and themes. Tragedy is brought together with comedy, poetry with philosophy, and theater with ordinary life under the auspices of the twice-born god, Dionysus. The Dionysian, duplicitously evasive, nature is shown to be contemporaneous with the double-edged nature of shame. The contemplation of shame in Sophocles’ Oedipus and Aristophanes’ Clouds, aids the investigation of the humanity preserving and the corrupting role of shame in Plato’s Gorgias. The findings of the final chapter serve to locate the pressure points of pathology and tyranny as these recede into the tragicomic dramas of our lives. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

<p> Through examining various stage representations of women, this dissertation investigates both the limitations and possibilities that seventeenth-century conceptualizations of the soul-body relationship posed for female subject-positions. The gender-coded soul-body dichotomy lies at the root of many negative and disempowering depictions of women. And yet, this in many ways oppressive construct, I argue, could also function as an effective tool for radically redefining gender expectations. Women and the Soul-Body Dichotomy demonstrates how a critical awareness of a text's engagement with theories of the spirit-matter divide can suggest new readings of its representations of women - readings available to seventeenth-century audiences that we should not overlook. More specifically, I explore dramatic disruptions of the soul-body hierarchy, and the usual values attached to each "side," that significantly challenge the patriarchal subordination of women. While the recent emphasis on the body in early modern studies has proven immensely productive, this focus tends to eclipse seventeenth-century concepts of the soul and the soul-body dynamic. I insist here that not only developing ideas about the body, but ideas about soul and body together are what crucially shaped gender ideology and cultural perceptions of women.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Thesis advisor: Marina McCoy / Since antiquity, scholars have observed a structural tension within Plato’s Phaedrus. Thedialogue demands order in every linguistic composition, yet it presents itself as a disordered composition. Accordingly, one of the key problems of the Phaedrus is determining which—if any—aspect of the dialogue can supply a unifying thread for the dialogue’s major themes (love, rhetoric, writing, myth, philosophy, etc.). My dissertation argues that “soul-leading” (psuchagōgia)—a rare and ambiguous term used to define the innate power of words—resolves the dialogue’s structural tension. I clarify the conceptual and dramatic features of soul-leading by focusing on the dialogue’s uniquely prevalent use of the semantic network of “leading” and “following.” By continuing to foreground the language and drama of leading and following, I offer a new interpretation of the dialogue as a whole: the Phaedrus is Plato’s articulation of how the soul can be led into communion with reality. Chapter 1 discusses scholarly disputes about the unity of the Phaedrus and proposes that soulleading adequately satisfies the criteria put forward for what would count as a unifying element. I argue that soul-leading unifies the dialogue both thematically and non-thematically; moreover, soul-leading is a theme capacious enough to account for the other principal contenders for unity put forward. Chapter 2 develops the ambiguous character of soul-leading by examining how the dialogue showcases dangerous forms thereof. Love and language are dangerous when they lead the soul toward goods which can never truly fulfill it. In order to clarify how love and language can mislead the soul, Socrates develops a set of accounts of how the soul is led, both internally and externally, in the three speeches on love. If the soul is to be led into communion with reality (the proper end of soul-leading), it must be led internally by the right part of the soul and externally by the right object of desire. Chapter 3 argues that all souls can, in principle, be harmonized and directed in the way that Chapter 2 requires. I show that Plato’s view of philosophy is neither elitist (i.e., some are intrinsically incapable of philosophy) nor naively essentialist. All can come into communion with reality because all are by nature equipped to do so. While Plato recognizes that there are forces which tend to prohibit one from exercising one’s capability of being rightly led, none of them are intrinsic to human nature. Chapter 4 argues that successful soul-leading require neither the leader nor the follower to be already well-disposed to what’s ultimate in order for the pair to come to a communion with what’s ultimate. Plato’s depiction of soul-leading love shows that love can itself promote the formation needed for both leader and follower to come into contact with reality. Love can do so because it is always already bound up reality in its responsiveness to beauty. Beauty itself calls the lover to itself by shining through the beautiful beloved, who acts as a reminder of transcendent Beauty. The lover mediates this same experience for the beloved. Each comes to desire the other as well as Beauty itself. Chapter 5 argues that the drama of the lovers’ formation mythically depicted in the Palinode (Chapter 4) is written into the drama of the dialogue as a whole. In the relationship between Socrates and Phaedrus, we see an enactment of love’s formative role. Likewise, in the relationship between Phaedrus and Lysias, we see an enactment of the dangerous soul-leading discussed in Chapter 2. My focus on leading and following also allows me to show the thematic significance of the drama’s setting. Chapter 6 articulates the metaphysical conditions under which one can be led into communion with reality. Transcendent Beauty invites us into communion with itself and makes possible our ascent by providing us with divine guides and images which can transport us from our ordinary experiences to the true beings. Beauty accomplishes its work—leading us in a “divine dance” where we follow the gods up to Beauty and back down to each other—through images. When we handle images of reality rightly, they lead our souls into communion with reality. Further, when we have come into communion, we’ll be inspired to be co-workers of Beauty’s soul-leading work. When we articulate reality in language, we create new images that can serve to lead others toward reality. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

This thesis examines Plutarch's vague comments about the materiality of the soul in Moralia. My contention is that, despite suggestions to the contrary, Plutarch aligned with Plato in thinking about the soul as immaterial. I argue that a deeper understanding of Plutarch's relationship to Plato as well as the Stoics and Epicureans of his time shed light on his otherwise ambiguous passages. The end result will be (1) a more secure understanding of Plutarch's position on the materiality of the soul and (2) an improved ability to appreciate Plutarch's playful and vivid language as he describes immaterial souls with material descriptions.

Orientador: Eliana Maria de Melo Souza / Banca: Ana Lúcia Castro / Banca: Dagoberto José Fonseca / Banca: José Adriano Fenerick / Banca: Márcia Regina Tosta Dias / Resumo: Esta tese investiga a aclimatação do gênero musical soul music no Brasil dos anos 1970. Por meio da análise da canção de importantes músicos negros da época: Tim Maia, Jorge Ben e Tony Tornado, bem como do chamado movimento "Black Rio", sugerimos uma inflexão na formação de uma identidade negra no país, o que representou a emergência de uma estrutura de sentimentos negra e transnacional. Esta estrutura de sentimentos se caracterizou pela sua afirmação étnica e pelo seu internacionalismo vinculado à contracultura negra ocidental. No contexto político repressivo da ditadura, este movimento musical ajudou a aglutinar jovens negros em torno de uma política de identidades, além de fazer uma oposição manifesta ao mito da democracia racial, ideologia oficial do regime civil-militar / Abstract: This thesis investigates the acclimatisation of soul music genres in Brazil in the 70's by the analysing the songs of important black musicians of the era: Tim Maia, Jorge Ben and Tony Tornado as well as the movement called "Black Rio". We suggest an inflection on the formation of the black identity in the country that represented the emergence of a black structure of feelings in transnational levels. This structure of feelings is chacacterised by its ethinic affirmation and its internationalism tied to black western counterculture. In a repressive political context of dictatorship, this musical movement helped bring together young black men around political identity and made a clear objection to the myth of racial democracy, the official ideology of the civil-military regime / Doutor

Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-17T15:26:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-07-29. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2015-09-17T15:45:02Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000846628.pdf: 1640434 bytes, checksum: cc92db0f7ba75dd007ed5a5df867a651 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta tese investiga a aclimatação do gênero musical soul music no Brasil dos anos 1970. Por meio da análise da canção de importantes músicos negros da época: Tim Maia, Jorge Ben e Tony Tornado, bem como do chamado movimento Black Rio, sugerimos uma inflexão na formação de uma identidade negra no país, o que representou a emergência de uma estrutura de sentimentos negra e transnacional. Esta estrutura de sentimentos se caracterizou pela sua afirmação étnica e pelo seu internacionalismo vinculado à contracultura negra ocidental. No contexto político repressivo da ditadura, este movimento musical ajudou a aglutinar jovens negros em torno de uma política de identidades, além de fazer uma oposição manifesta ao mito da democracia racial, ideologia oficial do regime civil-militar / This thesis investigates the acclimatisation of soul music genres in Brazil in the 70's by the analysing the songs of important black musicians of the era: Tim Maia, Jorge Ben and Tony Tornado as well as the movement called Black Rio. We suggest an inflection on the formation of the black identity in the country that represented the emergence of a black structure of feelings in transnational levels. This structure of feelings is chacacterised by its ethinic affirmation and its internationalism tied to black western counterculture. In a repressive political context of dictatorship, this musical movement helped bring together young black men around political identity and made a clear objection to the myth of racial democracy, the official ideology of the civil-military regime

No / Cannibals, burials, vampires, human sacrifice, bog people ¿ throughout history our ancestors have responded to death in numerous ways. The past has left us numerous relics of these encounters between the dead and those they leave behind: accounts of sacrifices in early histories, rituals that have stood the test of time, bodies discovered in caves and bogs, remains revealed by archaeological digs. Through these insights into the past, Tim Taylor pieces together evidence of how our ancestors created their universe and asks how we have dealt with the idea of the end and slowly come to create not only a sense of the afterlife but also the soul.

Surprisingly little experimental research has explored the psychological function of soul belief given its prevalence. As some have noted (e.g., Rank, 1930/1998), soul belief may have evolved to help individuals cope with existential concerns through promises of literal immortality. The research that has been conducted on the function of literal immortality shows that belief in an afterlife minimizes death-related concerns (Dechesne et al., 2003). I propose two separate hypotheses testing the psychological function of soul belief. Hypothesis 1 states that soul belief should minimize the threat of a death reminder (or mortality salience; MS); this hypothesis was supported in Study 1 where soul believers did not show an increase in death-thought accessibility (DTA) following MS, but low soul believers did show an increase. Hypothesis 2 states that soul belief should also offer protection from threats to symbolic immortality related to the prospect of the end-of-world. Studies 2, 3, 4, and 6 support the reasoning behind this hypothesis. However, Study 5 did not support Hypothesis 2. Considering the data that did support Hypothesis 2, soul believers showed less resistance to end-of-world arguments and also did not show an increase in DTA following such arguments; whereas, low soul believers respond to end-of-world arguments with more resistance and heightened DTA. The discussion focuses on interpretations of these findings and remaining questions.