Aristotle's idea of the soul
The 'unmoved first mover' of the 'I' in 'I will'
This is Who made our minds?, my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024). Next week: Of Gods and Romans
From 2 January 2025: A grand tour of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So, rush out and tell all your Jewish, Christian and Muslim friends!
THE STARTING POINT of all things, the seminal pneuma that suffused the egg with life, the home of noos (intelligence, understanding), the ‘form’ of human, animal and vegetative matter, the tripartite citadel of reason, the ‘master’ of the body’s slave, the source of growth and nutrition, the ‘unmoved first mover’ of living substances, the prime mover of the universe: these were the powers assigned to the soul by a shining student of Plato’s.
We know little of him, and yet so du…