The Early Greek Concept of the Soul

The Early Greek Concept of the Soul

"Bremmer's goal is to present a picture of the historical development of beliefs regarding the soul in ancient Greece. He begins with the archaic age and Homeric epics, where the psyche is a 'free' soul which belongs to an individual and can leave the body -- in dreams, swoons, trances -- while the body is alive ... One of Bremmer's major contributions is to propose that Greek views of the soul should be characterized as multiple rather than dualistic. Further, we should consider the rather negative attitude toward the continued existence of the psyche after bodily death as arising in social conditions which valued the life of the community above the survival of the dead individual."

Jan Bremmer

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press

1983

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