Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

406
Tad Brennan
come a nature, an irrational soul, and finally a rational soul. And at each
stage of his life, that same thing could be called the ‘systasis’ of that stage.
Furthermore, when we look at a variety of living things – e.g. a tree and
a fish and Socrates – we may say that each one is the same as its systasis,
where that refers in the first case to a nature that is somehow relatively
disposed to some woody-stuff, in the second case to an irrational soul
that is somehow relatively disposed to some fishy flesh, and in the
third case to a hÞgemonikon that is somehow disposed towards a
human body.
Thus ‘systasis’ acts as a convenient covering term, in two ways: it
can refer indifferently to a variety of soul-like entities in a variety of distinct
life-forms (tree, fish, man), picking out their roles in organizing
that life-form; and it can refer indifferently to the same soul-like entity
in the course of one individual’s development from embryo to rational
adult, even though that soul-like entity undergoes important qualitative
changes that take it from being a physis to being a hÞgemonikon in the
space of fifteen years. “Each age of life,” Seneca tells us, “has its constitution:
one for the infant, one for the boy, one for the adolescent, one
for the old man.” 29 Characterized in relation to the kind of life-form
that the systasis is constituting, and the kind of soul-like entity that anchors
the systasis, the systasis is different at each age: when Socrates is in
utero, his systasis is a physis, disposed in a certain way towards the body of
a plant, whereas when he is a toddler, his systasis is an irrational soul, disposed
in a certain way towards the body of an irrational animal, and
when he is an adult, his systasis is a rational soul, a hÞgemonikon, disposed
in a certain way towards the body of a rational human being. But of
course, viewed as one diachronic individual, we can say that one and
the same thing was Socrates’ self at every stage, and that at every
stage it was his systasis.
You can see that many of the same problems are going to arise for
the Stoics that arise for the Platonists. The relation between the soul and
the body is fairly clear, but now we would like to hear more about the
relation between myself and the human being. I am not a compound of
soul and body, but there is such a compound, a human being, and it’s
not altogether clear how I am related to it. In particular, it is not altogether
clear why I should take the ethical and desiderative attitude towards
it that the Stoics urge me to take. I should be indifferent to my
body, because it is no part of the real me, which is my hÞgemonikon
29 Sen. Ep. 121 = LS 57B.