please try to send me anything about the soul concept in philosophy. Thanks in advance.

-- Shahinda Issa Abu Farha (forevermoonlight@hotmail.com), March 19, 2003

Answers

"Through history" is a long time. There have been many changes. For Homeric Greece, try Jan Bremmer's book _The ancient Greek concept of the soul_. For later classical Greece, try Steven Everson's _Companion to Ancient Thought 2: Psychology_ and Thomas Robinson's _Plato's Psychology_. For Aristotle, try Michael Durrant's _Aristotle's De Anima in Focus_. For Hellenistic Greece try Julia Annas' _Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind_. For neo-Platonic Rome, try Henry J. Blumenthal's chapter in Lloyd Gerson's _Cambridge Companion to Plotinus_. There are many many books on the topic with respect to Christinaity (and Islam) in the middle ages. St Augustine's and Thomas Aquinas' work are, of course, highly influential (try Anthony Kenny's _Aquinas on Mind_. By that point in time (the Renaissance), any one of a number of history of psychology texts will pick up the story (some better than others).

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), March 19, 2003.

You'll find a succinct overview with excellent bibliographic material in Vande Kemp, H. (2000). Psyche and soul. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Volume 6, pp. 334-337). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; New York: Oxford University Press-USA. The many articles in the Encyclopedia of Religion edited by Mircea Eliade are especially helpful for a cross- cultural view.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), March 19, 2003.