The broad and comprehensive horizon of ancient Greek thought encompasses many and diverse ideas and raises numerous and varied questions regarding human identity.
Are human beings essentially mortal, as the Homeric Epics emphatically take for granted, or do we have the capacity to achieve immortality, as Plato often claims, following a different tradition?
When and why do specific ideas about the differences between body and soul begin to emerge? Is the soul simple or complex? What led to the idea that the best life is one governed by reason, with desires and emotions subordinated to this authority?
Is human reasoning a divine attribute? With clear and understandable writing that is not aimed solely at a specialized audience, A. A. Long offers a synthetic overview of how ancient Greek philosophy approached the fundamental issues of mind, soul, and body; how ancient thinkers approached what is closest to us yet even more mysterious: the essence of the human self.
