Since ancient times, human beings have tried to answer some questions as simple as they are elusive: what makes us alive? When a person dies, what really disappears about them? Do breathing, consciousness, memory, identity survive the body? In the Western philosophical and religious tradition, soul means the vital and immaterial principle associated with the identity of the human being, with conscience and, in many doctrines, with the possibility of its survival beyond death.
But this seemingly simple definition hides a much more complex story. In fact, not all cultures have conceived the person as the union of a material body and a single immaterial soul, nor have they attributed the same characteristics to what we call “soul”.
Even words retain traces of this plurality. The Latin “anima” originally indicated the breath, the breath and, by extension, what makes an organism alive. The term is traditionally combined with the Greek ánemos, “wind”, while Greek philosophy mainly uses psyche to indicate the vital principle. The Latin spiritus, derived from spirare, “to blow, breathe”, introduces another constellation of meanings that will acquire particular importance in Christian thought.
Behind a word familiar today lies a very ancient question: what makes a person alive and, above all, what remains of them when the body dies?
The breath of the gods: when the soul meant “breath” in Latin
The association between breath and life is probably one of the most immediate intuitions through which human societies have tried to interpret death. It is not surprising, therefore, that in numerous linguistic and religious traditions the words used to talk about the soul are semantically close to wind, air or breath.
This is the case of the Latin anima, but also of spiritus: both can refer to the breath, although they have developed different meanings over time. A clear and universal distinction between soul and spirit, however, would be historically misleading. The two concepts have overlapped, separated and redefined depending on the era and the philosophical or theological tradition taken into consideration.
In Christian thought, in particular, the lexus becomes more complex. The soul is progressively associated with the individuality of the person and its immaterial dimension, while the spirit can indicate both a dimension of the human being oriented towards God and, in other contexts, divine action or presence. However, the biblical tradition itself presents a much more complex vocabulary than the simple modern opposition between body and soul suggests.
This terminological difficulty highlights a fundamental methodological problem. As religious historians and anthropologists have shown, translating concepts developed by very distant societies through a Western category such as “soul” risks creating equivalences that did not originally exist.
Talking about the soul of the ancient Egyptians, for example, is useful to orient us, but it can become misleading if we imagine that they conceived a single spiritual entity separate from the body.
The Egyptians and the different spiritual elements of the person
In ancient Egypt, in fact, the individual was not simply made up of body and soul. The person emerged from the interaction of different physical and non-physical components, each of which participated in a different way in life, identity and survival after death. Among the most important we find the ka, the ba and the akh. The ja can be interpreted, with some caution, as a vital force: something that accompanies the existence of the individual and continues to need sustenance after death.
Precisely this conception helps to explain the importance of funerary offerings. The ba, often represented in Egyptian art as a bird with a human head, instead possessed a dimension more linked to the personality and ability of the deceased to move between the world of the living and that of the dead.
However, these components did not lead completely independent existences. According to the reconstruction proposed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Egyptian funerary religion, the ba had to return to the mummy and reunite with the ka; from their reunification the deceased could become an akh, that is, a transformed and effective being in the afterlife.
The conservation of the body therefore takes on a different meaning than it would have in a radically dualist conception. Mummification did not simply serve to preserve a now useless casing: the body continued to participate in the person’s post-mortem identity. Funerary texts, images, tombs, offerings and rituals together contributed to making this continuity possible.
Ancient Egypt thus shows how culturally specific the modern idea of a single “soul” is. What we tend to gather under a single term could be thought of as a plurality of interdependent elements.
Plato, Greek philosophy and the birth of the Western symbol
Many modern ideas about the soul derive from Greek philosophy. Before Plato, different conceptions of the soul coexisted even in ancient Greek culture. Plato’s work and thought, however, will be so influential as to create a new point of reference and supplant previous beliefs regarding the spiritual part of man.
In the Phaedo and in the RepublicPlato develops a dualist vision according to which the body and the soul belong to different dimensions. The soul is immortal, rational and close to the world of eternal ideas; the body is material, changeable and imperfect.
In the Republic, in particular, the philosopher does not describe the soul simply as a homogeneous entity and distinguishes three components within it, used to explain the conflicts that characterize the human experience:
- the first is the rational part (logistikón), associated with knowledge and the ability to deliberate. It is the component that should govern the individual and orient him towards what is truly good;
- the second is the irascible or spirited part (thymoeidés), linked to pride, indignation, courage and the search for honour. It does not simply coincide with anger: it can become an ally of reason and contribute to the control of appetites;
- the third is the appetitive part (epithymētikón), connected to bodily and material desires and pleasures. Plato does not argue that these desires should simply disappear: the problem is rather which component should govern the whole.
In the Republic, in fact, individual justice is conceived in relation to order and harmony between the different parts of the soul.
The metaphor of the winged chariot contained in the Phaedrus is famous: the soul is described as a charioteer who tries to guide two horses, one disciplined and one rebellious. The image represents the conflict between reason and passions, a tension that still characterizes much of Western thought today.
Plato’s influence was immense. Through Neoplatonism and the Church Fathers, many of his ideas merged into Christian theology. Consequently, the contemporary idea of an individual, immaterial, immortal soul owes much more to Greek philosophy than we often imagine.
What if it didn’t exist? The Buddhist anātman
One of the most radical perspectives comes from Buddhism. Unlike many religious traditions, Buddhism denies the existence of an eternal soul. On the contrary, one of its fundamental principles is theanātmanwhich literally means “not self”.
In light of all these different examples, the question “does the soul exist?” takes on a different meaning. Before even asking ourselves whether it exists, we should ask ourselves what we mean by the term “soul”.
Are we talking about the vital breath of the ancients? Del Ka Egyptian? Of Plato’s immortal soul? Of the Christian self? Of the selflessness of Buddhism?
Anthropology does not offer a definitive answer to the question of the existence of the soul. However, it shows us something equally important: the categories with which we interpret the world are not universal. The soul is probably not a discovery of humanity, but one of its most extraordinary cultural inventions. An answer to the mystery of life that each society has formulated differently, using its own symbols, its own experiences and its own questions.
