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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Alcmaeon was speaking of the human soul, not a world soul

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aristotle frequently projects his own hylomorphic categories onto predecessors, making his reports unreliable guides to original intent.
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    • 2.Pre-Socratic thinkers like Anaximenes and Heraclitus treated cosmic and psychic principles as continuous, not categorically distinct.
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    • 3.If Alcmaeon identified soul with self-motion, and the heavens are paradigmatically self-moving, the soul may participate in a common cosmic principle.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The analogy between human soul and celestial motion in Aristotle's report is structurally identical to Plato's world-soul argument in the Timaeus.
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    • 2.Scholars including Vlastos have argued that early Pythagorean-adjacent thinkers, including Alcmaeon, used macrocosm-microcosm isomorphism as a foundational explanatory strategy.
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    • 3.An isomorphism between soul and heavenly motion is more parsimoniously explained by shared substance than by mere analogical resemblance.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Aristotle's report on Alcmaeon's view of the soul is clearly about the human soul
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    • 2.The soul being discussed is said to be similar to the heavenly motions, and therefore must be distinct from them
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