Search Results

From Richard McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates: "Aristotle reports that Thales believed magnets possess soul because they move iron, and infers that he judged the soul to be a thing that causes motion.18 [Aristotle, On the Soul 1.2 405a19 = DK 11A22] Thales also held that amber (which has magnetic properties when rubbed or heated) possesses soul.19 [Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 1.24 = DK 11A1] It is hard to know what to make of these statements. The idea that the soul is the…

Me neither, I just happened to be reading that!

"Soul" in this sense almost sounds like "life force." I wonder if the concept has evolved over time?

This is from DL Book 1, Mensch translation: 24 And some, including the poet Choerilus, say he was the first to declare that souls are immortal. He was the first to discover the course of the sun from solstice to solstice, and the first, according to some, to say that the size of the sun is one seven hundred and twentieth part of the solar circle, <and that the size of the moon is the same fraction of the lunar circle.> He was the first to call the last day of the month the thirtieth, and the fir…

There seem to have been varying opinions on this point. From footnote 41 in this article: https://www.getty.edu/publications/ambers/intro/6/ "The early Greek philosopher Thales of Miletos is credited by Diogenes Laertius as the first to recognize amber’s magnetism: “Arguing from the magnet and from amber, he attributed a soul or life even to inanimate objects” (Diogenes Laertius 1.24, vol. 1, ed. and trans. R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 184 [London, 1993]). E. R. Caley and J. C. Richards, …

Apparently there was lively debate in ancient times as to what exactly amber is, and it’s origin: https://ambers.netlify.app/intro/9/