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Soul

1 What is a soul

2 Essence

3 Mystical creation

4 It is Immortal

5 It is a source of change

6 It is the source of motion

7 The reasoning soul

8 The Soul and mind

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1 What is a soul

So our conclusion is that soul is itself a thing in the sense of being able to subsist by itself, but one which does not possess a complete specific nature of its own; rather it is something which completes a human being’s specific nature by being the form of a human body. So that the soul is at once and the same time a form and itself a thing. (Aquinas - Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford) p.189)

Soul is the dust most (pedaco de po) on air. It moves by itself even when there is no wind around. (Aristotle - On the soul p5)

Identifying thought with the soul, that is, with the motion of soul-atom. His reasoning: knowledge is the same as perception because both are identical with the motion of soul-atoms (Aristotle - On the soul Oxford p. XXii)

The gold must be a flower, the spirit must be the body and must become a soul in order to be able to live. (Kurgast - Herman Hesse)

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2 Essence

Now the soul is by essence immaterial, so by essence intellectual. Intellect then is its essence, and other abilities likewise. (Aquinas - Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford) p.124)

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3 Mystical creation

In this perfect world having neither eyes nor ears, for there was nothing without him wich he could see or hear: he had no need to carry food to his mouth, nor was their air for him to breath; he did not require hands, for there were nothing of which he could take hold, nor feet. All that he did was done rationally in and by himself, and he moved in a circle turning within himself, which is the most intellectual of motions; but the other six motions were wanting to him;wherefore the universe had no feet or legs. Having intercourse with himself - the soul was made and then the body. (Plato -Timaeus p.10)

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4 It is Immortal

Human soul is immortal and has been through many earthly lives and many periods of existence (A History of Greek Philosophy v4 W. K. C. Guthrie p.295) 

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5 It is a source of change

This is soul, source of change and motion in all things (if the soul is older the body than is said to exist by nature. (Plato Laws p. 231)

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6 It is the source of motion

Aristotle organizes his discussion thematically around the main attributes of the soul which his predecessors had identified. He begins with two - it is a source of motion and centre of awareness - and later adds a third; it is incorporeal. (Aristotle On the soul Oxford p.XXi)

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7 The reasoning soul

And it is a fortiori impossible for the life-principles of things which reason, the activities of which involve abstracting the species of things not only from matter but from every material condition of particularity, so as to know them in general. And there is something further still to consider, which is peculiar to rising souls: not only do they take in species that can be understood without their matter and material condition, but, as Aristotle proves, they cannot shares that special activity of theirs with any bodily organ, in the sense of having a bodily organ for thinking as an eye is the bodily organ for seeing. (Aquinas - Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford) p.187)

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8 The Soul and mind

Thus Aristotle says that mind is sort of indecomposable substance. And Plato’s saying that soul is immortal and subsists of itself because it moves itself amounts to the same. For he is using movement broadly to mean any activity, and the mind moving itself must be interpreted to mean that it is active of itself. (Aquinas - Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford) p.188)