The knowledge of the soul and its whatness have always held a particular status among philosophical discussions. This, in a way, seems to be the case in empirical sciences as well. Aristotle and Proclus, two representatives of the most prominent and influential ancient
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The knowledge of the soul and its whatness have always held a particular status among philosophical discussions. This, in a way, seems to be the case in empirical sciences as well. Aristotle and Proclus, two representatives of the most prominent and influential ancient schools of philosophy – Peripatetic philosophy and Neo-Platonic School, respectively – paid particular attention to this field and discussed them in their main works. Through focusing on two main sources of psychology written by these two philosophers, the present paper is intended to examine the development of the definition of the whatness of the soul while identifying the points of agreement and conflict between the views of Aristotle and Proclus. In his natural definition, Aristotle considers the soul to be related to the body and maintains that it is necessarily the substance and form of the natural body, which enjoys potential life. He also views the soul as the first perfection of the natural body, which enjoys potential life. However, in his metaphysical definition of the soul, he introduces it as being independent of the body and considers the soul to be the origin of the life of the living existent. In his natural and metaphysical definitions of the soul, Proclus follows a relatively similar path to Aristotle. In his natural definition of the soul, he introduces it as the perfection of the body and, in fact, the natural form and perfection of a potentially living organic body. However, he adopts a route different from that of Aristotle in his descriptive definition of the soul. Here, he stipulates that the truth of the soul is a self-made, self-animated, self-formed, and self-actualized entity and believes that the soul is the origin of life and the cause of bodies, their existence and preservation and, in a sense, the creator of their uniqueness and continuity.
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