Christoph Helmig, "Zur Vorgeschichte der Theorie des Seelenwagens zwischen Platon und den Neuplatonikern", in: Verena Olejniczak Lobsien, Bernd Roling, Lutz Bergemann and Bettina Bohle (Eds.), Vom Seelengefährt zum Glorienleib. Formen aitherischer Leiblichkeit, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2018, 21–30

Abstract

My contribution looks at some scattered remarks in Middle Platonic authors, with a special emphasis on Plutarch’s Moralia, which may include references to a vehicle of the soul. In at least two of his myths, which are clearly inspired by Plato, we find traces of a theory of how to imagine the character and nature of the soul after death that cannot readily be explained against the background of Plutarch’s usual source material. I take it that these passages point to a tradition that, long before the more systematic theories elaborated bythe (later) Neoplatonists, alludes to a psychic ochêma albeit in a rather mythical fashion. Hence, the article aims at a tentative reconstruction of the as yet largely unexplored history of the vehicle of the soul between Plato and the Neoplatonists.

Published In

Verena Olejniczak Lobsien, Bernd Roling, Lutz Bergemann and Bettina Bohle (Eds.), Vom Seelengefährt zum Glorienleib. Formen aitherischer Leiblichkeit, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2018