Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

38
Carl Huffman
is it precisely that fragment 7 suggests has been preserved between the
man and the puppy? Clearly it is the ability to feel pain and the ability
to express that pain in sounds, sounds moreover that reflect the personality
of an individual. Nothing is said here about the puppy’s ability to
think. It cannot do sums and count out the sums with an appropriate
number of barks. What it can do is feel and express its feelings in an individual
way. This psychÞ thus bears a strong resemblance to the psychÞ as
a center of emotions and desires, which I argued above could be found
in fragment 13 of Philolaus. If this seems a lot to draw from one short
fragment of Xenophanes, it is important to note that fragment 4 of Ion
of Chios, the third early testimonium for Pythagoras’ conception of soul,
written sometime in the second half of the fifth century, also emphasizes
just these same psychic faculties. Ion says that someone, probably Pherecydes,
“although having perished, has a pleasant life for his psychÞ, if
Pythagoras is truly wise” 48 . In this case it is impossible to be sure that
transmigration of the soul is meant, but certainly Pherecydes’ soul has
survived death in some sort of personal form. Most importantly, it is
the pleasure felt by the soul that is emphasized, so once again the soul
is characterized by its emotions and perceptions.
No single piece of evidence presented in this paper is, in itself, particularly
strong. I hope to have shown, however, that all the evidence,
taken together, presents a remarkably consistent conception of soul over
a period of 130 years, from about 530 to about 400 BC. If we start from
that conception in its more developed form found in fragment 13 of
Philolaus, it is possible to give at least tentative answers to some of
the puzzles raised about transmigration by Burkert and discussed earlier
in this paper. 49 First, the hierarchy in fragment 13 makes clear that Philolaus,
and presumably Pythagoras before him, did not think that human
beings could be reborn as plants, since it is a psychÞ that is reborn and
plants do not have a psychÞ. 50 Second, the hierarchy suggests that,
48 For the correct text see Sandbach 1958 – 1959, 36 and Burkert 1972, 123 n. 13.
49 Burkert 1972, 133 – 134.
50 According to Bremmer (1983, 125) “Pythagoras thought that in the chain of
reincarnations the psyche also entered plants”, but this is based on Fragment
89 of Heraclides of Pontus (= D.L. 8.4), where the doctrine of transmigration
of plants is not in fact put directly in the mouth of Pythagoras but is rather assigned
to Euphorbus. Of course, Pythagoras will be the later reincarnation of
Euphorbus, but still this dramatized presentation by Heraclides suggests that
he is not so much reporting a tradition about Pythagoras as composing his
own drama. Riedweg (2005, 62) and Burkert (1972, 133 n. 74) both associate