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Concept
Pneuma
Summary
Pneuma (πνεῦμα) is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of ruach רוח in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek New Testament.
In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from psyche (ψυχή), which originally meant "breath of life", but is regularly translated as "spirit" or most often "soul".
Pneuma, "air in motion, breath, wind", is equivalent in the material monism of Anaximenes to aer (ἀήρ, "air") as the element from which all else originated. This usage is the earliest extant occurrence of the term in philosophy. A quotation from Anaximenes observes that "just as our soul (psyche), being air (aer), holds us together, so do breath (pneuma) and air (aer) encompass the whole world." In this early usage, aer and pneuma are synonymous.
Spontaneous generation#AristotleOn Breath and Movement of Animals
The "connate pneuma" (symphuton pneuma) of Aristotle is the warm mobile "air" that plays many roles in Aristotle's biological texts. It is in sperm and is responsible for transmitting the capacity for locomotion and certain sensations to the offspring. These movements derive from the soul of the parent and are embodied by the pneuma as a material substance in semen.
Pneuma is necessary for life, and as in medical theory is involved with preserving the "vital heat," but some commentators think the Aristotelian pneuma is less precisely and thoroughly defined than that of the Stoics.
Movement of Animals explains the activity of desire (orexis) as an expansion and contraction of pneuma. The innate spirit (symphuton pneuma) is the power of the soul (psychiken) to be mobile (kinetikon) and exercise strength.
All animals "possess an inborn spirit (pneuma sumphuton) and exercise their strength in virtue of it." (703a10). This inborn spirit is used to explain desire (orexis), which is classified as the "central origin (to meson), which moves by being itself moved.
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