Faculties of the soul
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The faculties of the soul are the individual characteristics attributed to a soul. There have been different attempts to define them over the centuries.
Plato, Aristotle and their followers
Plato defined the faculties of the soul in terms of a three-fold division: the intellect (noûs), the nobler affections (thumós), and the appetites or passions (epithumetikón)[1] Aristotle also made a three-fold division of natural faculties, into vegetative, appetitive and rational elements,[2] though he later distinguished further divisions in the rational faculty, such as the faculty of judgement and that of cleverness (deinotes).[3]
Islamic philosophers continued his three-fold division;[4] but later Scholastic philosophers defined five groups of faculties (dunámeis):[5]
- the "vegetative" faculty (threptikón), concerned with the maintenance and development of organic life
- the appetite (oretikón), or the tendency to any good
- the faculty of sense perception (aisthetikón)
- the "locomotive" faculty (kinetikón), which presides over the various bodily movements
- reason (dianoetikón)
Calvin
John Calvin opposed the scholastic philosophers, favoring a two-fold division of the soul, consisting of intellect and of will.[6]
Faculty psychology
The secularisation of the Age of Enlightenment produced a faculty psychology of different but inherent mental powers such as intelligence or memory, distinct (as in Aristotelianism) from the acquired habits.[7]
See also
- 'Aql (rational faculty in Islamic philosophy)
- Jerry Fodor
- Phrenology
- Psychology
- Rational animal
- Thomism
- Trichotomy
