Editorial

• Autor(a) principal: Pires, Maria Laura Bettencourt
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/gaudiumsciendi.2014.2726

Many cultures have acknowledged the existence of a psychological principle designated as Soul. From a religious and philosophical perspective, the immaterial aspect of a human being is often considered as synonymous of mind or character. In theology, the soul is defined as the part which participates of divinity and survives the body. While ancient Greek civilization had a mainly dualistic perspective of man, the biblical culture has always had a unitary vision. We know that the word soul derives from the Hebrew nephesh and also of the Latin animu and thatin old Greek, the term used to designate soul was Pneuma. Considering the evolving history of the concept, in this Editorial, we will refer to the visions of Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, Aristotle, the ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Hindus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Aquino, Descartes and Spinoza. Afterwards, from all this ideology – by incrementing the roots of which they derived – we have the present concepts of soul, that were the basis of many religions, whose followers believe to possess souls, or being accompanied by them or even to being souls themselves.