Roots and Branches

Aristotle has further developed his concept described in part 3 of this essay; however, I do not want to go into more details here. I'd rather describe Plato's idea of the soul now. Plato, by the way, was Aristotle's teacher and mentor, and he was also a friend and disciple of Socrates who in 399 BC was killed by the hemlock (more precisely, he was sentenced to take the hemlock). Plato taught that the soul was something beyond the material world and had nothing to do with sensing or emotions. Rather, the real soul is pure intellect or pure reason in an ideal world. Our human souls are incomplete corrupted copies, he taught, of this one ideal soul. The soul as the pure intellect, as pure ratio: that may sound a bit astonishing for isn't Plato usually associated with an idealistic philosophy and often also with mysticism but not necessarily with terms such as "the power of reason"? The latter may make one think rather of modern scientific rationalism and mater...